Blood of Elves

Geralt doubts Triss’s ability to honor her loyalty to the Brotherhood and keep the promise she makes to the witchers to keep Ciri safe. The Brotherhood has a reputation for kidnapping Sources from their families at young ages and raising them to be mages. Triss claims that such practices are long abandoned, but Geralt still feels concerned about the unexpected risk: If Ciri is ever discovered, any number of groups would want her for her claim to Cintra’s throne and for her magical potential. It is reasonable for Geralt to be suspicious, especially since he trusts very few mages in the first place. Although Triss claims her experience at Sodden Hill diminished her loyalty to the Brotherhood, she later declares she would fight alongside them should the need arise, which indicates she may be more loyal to them than she thinks. Like many of the novel’s characters, Triss struggles with her sense of Identity and Belonging.

The witchers’ recollections of Ciri’s previous trances indicate that her abilities are provoked by magical substances (even a mild elixir) and bodily trauma, which explains the trance Triss witnessed after Ciri fell while running the Trail. Despite Triss’s earlier concern that the witchers might subject Ciri to mutagenic experiments, she herself conducts an experiment on Ciri in order to prompt a trance. While inside Ciri’s mind, the images Triss sees are disjointed and dreamlike. The trance first places Triss at the site of Sodden Hill, arguably the greatest trauma of her life so far, and distresses her with visions of friends who died in the battle. Ciri’s blood running along her lifeline and the strange voice’s statement about the blood of elves suggest Ciri’s lifeline and the blood of elves are somehow linked. The ominous chasm full of swirling red smoke may be a prophetic image, though its significance is unclear, and Ciri seems just as confused by it as Triss does.

The phrases the voice utters through Ciri are significant for their connections to each other and to Ithlinne’s Prophecy. “The Child of Elder Blood” references a specific lineage of elven ancestry, and Ithlinne’s Prophecy states the world will be reborn of the same “Elder Blood.” Additionally, Dandelion’s song about Ciri and Geralt in Chapter 1 makes references to Ciri having Elder Blood (9). According to Witcher lore, Feainnewedd is a rare flower that only blooms in places where Elder Blood is spilled. In Elder Speech, “Feainnewedd” translates as “Sun-Child” or “Child of the Sun,” which also links to Ithlinne’s Prophecy: “The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun” (1). Regarding the “White Flame,” narration later in the novel identifies Emperor Emhyr var Emreis of Nilfgaard as being called “the White Flame Dancing on the Grave-Mounds of Enemies” (295), though Ithlinne’s Prophecy also makes oblique references to “White Chill,” “White Light,” and a “seed” that will “burst into flame.” While some people, like Dandelion’s audience in Chapter 1, view Nilfgaard’s war effort as a sign Ithlinne’s Prophecy is coming true, it is unclear at this point in The Witcher saga if there is a legitimate connection between the two. The voice in Ciri’s vision also says to Triss: “You’ve mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens” (111). This phrase repeats twice more in the novel, and it means that what Triss thought was true is actually false.

Triss teaches Ciri Elder Speech not only because a working knowledge of the language will help her learn magic but to make the strange phrases from her visions seem less frightening. Furthermore, if Ciri knows the meaning of what she says while in a trance, she can better understand the content of her visions. Ciri’s witcher training unfolds in a series of dialogue-only vignettes, which rely on her voice as well as Vesemir’s, Coën’s, Lambert’s, and Geralt’s to convey the action. In that sense, these scenes are dramatic—as in, reminiscent of theater. All of the scene’s information is relayed through the character’s diction, unassisted by objective narration describing physical actions or internal thoughts. This has the effect of speeding the scene’s pacing; it gives the impression of a cinematic montage or the sensation of time flying by.

The political debate that closes the chapter again touches on the theme of Neutrality, Justice, and War. The witchers’ view of war is based in neutrality, which Triss believes is impossible to maintain in practice. She experienced significant physical and psychological trauma in the Battle of Sodden Hill, and she feels the witchers’ perspective of war as a profitable adventure is reductive and dismissive of her lived experience: She lost close friends and nearly lost her own life. Triss believes the witchers are naïve and is angry that they do not recognize the privilege that enables them to view war as something removed from their lives. Ciri and Geralt’s argument about what her sword is meant for makes the witchers’ neutrality more understandable. In their view, they fight to protect others, but they never fight for selfish reasons like personal hatred. For Ciri, though, self-defense and defending others are intrinsically linked: She experienced war firsthand and wishes to save others from experiencing it too.