Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

I wouldn’t like anything bad to happen to you. I like you too much, owe you too much—’ ‘You’ve said that already. What do you owe me, Yennefer?’ The sorceress turned her head away, did not say anything for a while. ‘You travelled with him,’ she said finally. ‘Thanks to you he was not alone. You were a friend to him. You were with him.’

Beautiful, long, loose hair was a rarity, an indication of a woman’s position, her status, the sign of a free woman, a woman who belonged to herself.

Only druids and magicians – and whores – wore their hair naturally so as to emphasise their independence and freedom.

But one glance was enough for her to realise that although mutation could hold back the physical process of ageing, it did not alter the mental.

Eyes which had evidently seen too much.

Then came her independence, freedom and a crazy promiscuity which ended, as it usually does, in bitterness, disillusionment and resignation.

Their relationship quite obviously made them both unhappy, had led straight to destruction, pain and yet, against all logic . . . it had lasted.

Triss turned her eyes away. His smile was not for her.

Even when something bad happens to you, you have to go straight back to that piece of equipment or you get frightened.

‘Hell and bloody damnation!’

He fell silent and looked at Ciri who, with a joyful squeal, acknowledged that she had the upper hand in the game. Triss spied a small smile on Coën’s face and was sure he had allowed her to win.

‘You’ve mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.’

‘Mistakes,’ he said with effort, ‘are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.

Anyone who doesn’t know other languages is handicapped.’

‘And who are you putting make-up on for, exactly?’ ‘Myself. A woman accentuates her beauty for her own self-esteem. ’

But I don’t want to die in a war, because they’re not my wars.’

everyone, absolutely everyone, is a mutant to a certain degree,

‘I know,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘I lose a great deal of my charm when one gets to know me better.

know you’re almost forty, look almost thirty, think you’re just over twenty and act as though you’re barely ten.

You mistake the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.’

Let’s go, my ugly one.’ Ciri bridled. ‘Why do you call me that?’ Yennefer smiled with the corners of her lips. ‘I promised to be sincere.’

There are many stories about magical animals but really, apart from the dragon, the cat is the only creature which can absorb the force.

when they spoke of the Keep – the eyes of the enchantress grew warm, lost their angry gleam and their cold, indifferent, wise depth.