THE OLD WOMAN — YENNIFER
Yennifer had lived long enough to understand the difference between ordinary fatigue and the kind that creeps into the marrow. Tonight it was the latter. Her joints ached from tending herbs all afternoon, her back throbbed from bending over scrolls, and her fingers still smelled faintly of crushed wolfsbane. She only wanted a moment—just a moment—to sit back in her old wooden chair and close her eyes.
Her lids fall shut… but the darkness behind them is wrong.
It is too thick, too immediate, like something waiting.
“Not now,” she whispers to no one, rubbing at her temple. Her breaths drag shallowly through her chest. “Please… not tonight.”
But visions have never listened to her. Not when she was young and fiery, not when she first took in the frightened girl wi
