Before the Thanedd Coup (Part 1)

A day later. Night in Dorian.

Lying there, on the ground, in a pool of his own blood, a man tried to understand where he made a mistake. Was it a moment ago, when he came here while thinking of easy money or in the short battle that came afterward?

His dying consciousness summarizes sad truth. He made a mistake before it. The very moment he took the job. Meddling in deep waters of political struggle was not that a local thug should do. He jumped way above his head and suffered from it.

But until the last breath, a man in linen simple clothes was unable to understand one thing.

Who the hell will keep a huge dragon on a leash? Naturally, he never saw any wyvern or a dragon, so he couldn't perceive the difference.

A moment ago they came here to kill a fat sick man and a little cripple on a wheelchair. Everything happened when they entered the yard.

A huge shadow descended with a bang in front of the trio. For a moment it stood still, observing them. He could have sworn he saw a light of contemplation in its reptile gaze. It was judging them from head to toe.

They came armed. But now it felt like a joke.

"What the fuck?" - screamed his comrade in dark dealings.

That was the last thing he said. Wyvern moved. Moved like an agile ghost. It shifted through darkness and slammed its body into the unlucky talkative guy. The man died in seconds, wyvern listened to its instincts and bit the head off. The crunching sound of broken bones echoed from its maw.

The thug looked at the scene with pure horror.

"What the..." - a half-elf who came to hire their gang for the trivial deed understood that there is nothing easy here. He tried to run. But he was marked as a target. Wyvern was hunting.

He managed to survive for two more steps. Then a huge reptile covered him with a jump and stomped on his chest. Its claws entered too deep inside his rib cage to survive. He tried to say something, yet blood flooded his mouth.

Wyvern flapped its wings and kicked the body aside, turning to the last man standing. Or, in his case, sitting on the ground in a pool of his own excretion.

"Please... don't kill me..." - he pleaded to something unknown. He can't muster even an ounce of strength. His leg didn't respond and his heart was beating fast enough to rip in any second. The thug cried silently due to pure terror.

Wyvern made a couple of steps, shifted, and all he felt is a tail impaling his stomach. It ran through his body, shattering the spine. He was thrown to the side of the yard.

What was he trying to reach while crawling? No one can tell. Even the man himself. It was just a last effort of a being trying to survive. He never realized that he already died.

A door opened, and a plump man walked out. He looked around, seeing the mess with a surprised, but icy gaze.

A black and white cat followed him. It glanced at the bodies with arrogance and apathy.

"Looks like we need to pack up things..." - Codringher grumbled. - "And they came just when my traps were disarmed. Damn, what a mess. Who killed them? A beast of some sort?"

Codringher grew wary and retreated to the corridor. The only couple of candles lit it during this time and he was ready to go to sleep, anyway. But this little incident changed plans entirely. It's not safe here anymore.

He turned around and with hurried steps approached the door to the basement and opened it.

"Fenn, we are leaving, send word to your connections." - the man shouted without going inside.

"What happened?" - a voice came from there and a wheelchair drove out from the corner with a short man on it. He didn't have legs and his head was proportionally larger than it should be.

"Someone came to us. Something killed them. I don't know who is protecting us, my dear colleague, but I'm not the one to make light of this. We need to disappear. Geralt, Geralt... this game is too much. Heads are rolling left and right. Death is following on every step."

"What to do with Ciri? You wanted to use it on your own."

"Fake one. We will use her as a guarantee for our retirement fund. Come, move. We need to reach her faster." - Codringher took the picture of a pale-haired woman with forest green eyes and stuffed it inside his clothes.

He then approached the table and used a candle to set a stack of paper aflame.

Fenn looked at it with regret but knew. They have no time to waste. It is better to burn everything than let it land in others' hands.

A minute later two figures left in a hurry, while a black and white cat looked at the burning house with scorn. Fire reflected in its eyes. People were running around screaming for water. Cat contemplated whether to follow her owners or not and decided not to.

It apathetically cleaned its paws that got dirty with blood from the ground.

* * *

Alan opened his eyes and looked sideways. It was the middle of the night and the wyvern was back. He knew her, oh yes, it was a female, her every move and every kill. She slaughtered three people, one of whom was a tall half-elf with a ponytail.

"Schirru." - murmured Alan. Until now Rience and now the second one died. In some sense, it is good. But who replaced Rience in ordering killers to get rid of him is a question.

'Actually, back then, the witcher that Geralt killed, he was not there to kill, but to kidnap me. Do I have two parties on my head? Who is who then?'

Wyvern was stealthy and agile while approaching him. No one can see it here, at the edge of the forest during the cloudy night.

Alan knocked the medallion with his fingertips, and in a flash of light, wyvern disappeared. His gaze locked with blood-red rubies on the dragon head. He found a very particular aspect of Dragon School medallion. It was not a taming artifact. In fact, quite the opposite.

If it wasn't for his Net, Alan knew he can't order wyvern to do his bidding.

The madallion did a very different thing. It actually extracted mutagens from the monsters and the life force they have to use as a portable medical bay for the wielder. Also, since it bound the wyvern, Alan felt his body and bloodline strengthening faster during meditations, and even his injury to mana circuit got better. His full recovery wasn't that far away.

However, the wyvern won't last long. He found a nekker nest in the local forest and tried to tame a nekker, yet medallion didn't give a response. Seems like it was working only of a certain species of monsters.

Still, Dragon School Medallion proved to be an invaluable help in training him. Perhaps after the wyvern thoroughly digested by it, Alan will have even more discoveries.

"You asked to see me?" - a woman's voice sounded from the side. It wasn't that cold. After their last talk she changed subtly, but enough for Alan to notice.

"Yes, I wanted to talk about Thanedd. I know that you are going there for a mages meeting and that it will be anything but peaceful. Yen, tell me, are you planning to use Ciri as a medium to announce everything that is happening around the Northern Lands?"

"Yes. I need to do this, or she will have nowhere to learn magic, and doing this I can make Tissaia owe her a favor. My teacher can protect her and will do it." - Yen said. A day ago she would have revealed nothing in such a straightforward manner.

"It is a mistake, Yen." - he said but didn't know how to explain what will happen. - "Scoia'taels will wait in the harbor under the island. They will arrive by sea and enter the moment the defenses are removed. You can't let that happen. Just warn you teacher. I know that you are doing it all for the Council of Mages, not for the kings, but involving Ciri is a grave mistake. It can easily go out of control."

Tissaia de Vries, an ancient mage. She already entered her fifth century of life quite a while ago. And she was very protective of mages and their society. She will never permit an attack from the outside.

The major tragedy of Thanedd happened when Tissaia removed every limiting enchantment on the island and destroyed dimeritium suppression.

That should be stopped if he wants to take care of Vilgefortz with little effort involved. But on the other hand, it is too risky. He is not arrogant enough to think he can outsmart or control a mage of such power as Tissaia. However, she is the one he can try to reason with. But the only way to meet her there is to take Ciri's place.

Yes. To become medium instead of Ciri.

"Wait, don't argue... Yen, we both know that I can do the same. My bloodline can be a medium too."

"You want to take her place?"

Alan merely nodded.

"Let Ciri go to find Margarita. Let her go directly to Aretuza, use me instead. If things go wrong, I can take care of myself better than her."

"Alan..."

Lilac eyes looked at him with uncertain emotions, but also approval.

"You two idiots... you are just the same..." - whispered.

"Listen to me, Yen, I'm not done. I want you to use this too." - he pointed at her hand. Yen raised it to see what he was talking about and froze.

There was a bracelet. A simple untraceable bracelet that had only one little gem imbued in it.

A gem as red as blood.