The Heartwood Everything, everything, everything.

While the wolves of Brokilon had treated her kindly, it'd never been home - not one she wanted to return to. It was there among the mystical woods that Ciri realised home, for her, could not be discovered in any land that the world had to offer. Instead, she'd found it in the softness of her mother's smile; in the scent of a Summertime breeze as she frolicked with her sister among wildflowers; in the gift of her father's words, shared with her since birth.

It pained her to know that her version of home was something she would no longer find.

Numbed by the ache of her discovery, Ciri turned away from the regrouped remains of Moonspear to pick her way aimlessly through the neighbouring glen. Her cousins had settled there not long before her family's arrival; they too had suffered. The young Ostrega did not weep as she considered the heavy weight she carried in her chest, though she very much wanted to.

She was truly alone, now. She would need to be strong.

Into an unfamiliar forest she wandered, its tree canopy providing shelter from the scorching heat of a high midday sun that bore down on her back. She exhaled shakily and lifted her gaze to look around, unsure where to go from there. To Mahler, to Sagtannet - or Rivenwood as the lioness had been informed when the gargoyle visited last - was her first thought, but she had no idea which territory her father had chosen made his own. The intention had been for Ciri and Elke to join him there with Winter's end, but fate had cruelly driven a wedge between such plans.

The yearling took a moment to squeeze her vivid eyes closed, to steady herself, then carried on moving forward between the foliage with no destination in mind.

She simply had to keep going, fearing that to stop would bring her to her knees.