Paths are beginning to cross and revelations are coming to light in the fourth episode of Netflix’s series adaptation of The Witcher, which sees Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) head to a ball alongside bard Jaskier as his bodyguard, while Cirilla (Freya Allan) meets a dangerous new ally and Yennefer (Anya Chalorta) chooses to forge her own path.
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The Beckoning Voice
After heading off in an unknown path through the woods in a trance, Ciri walks from the snow-covered trees into the oasis-like Brokilon Forest, where she is surrounded by tribal-looking people known as Dryads. The rest of the tribe hold a meeting protesting Ciri staying in the forest, as there’s a power deep inside her that she doesn’t even know about that could threaten them all, but the leader says they will have her and Dara drink the waters from the area and if they’re ill of heart, they will die, otherwise they will forget their troubles and stay.
The Wedding Celebration
After being swallowed by a selkiemore and cutting his way out of it, Geralt returns to the tavern to collect his reward and finds Jaskier in a nearby tavern collecting details of the story and the bard hires the witcher to act as his bodyguard at a royal ball, as he has slept with a few too many royal wives. While dressing him down and asking him to remain silent to avoid the spotlight, Jaskier is disconcerted that Geralt is immediately recognized and reunited with an old friend, the mage Mousesack, with the ball taking place in Cintra. Queen Calanthe arrives back from a battle to reveal that the ball is a wedding celebration for lords from other kingdoms to vie for the hand of Princess Pavetta, despite her not wanting marriage, and invites Geralt to sit by her side during the festivities.
Burning Bridges Early
Various lords vie for the hand of Pavetta, including that of Lord Peregrine from Nilfgaard, whom the rest of the crowd treats as a joke and Calanthe likens his nation to that of “shit wipe,” causing him to storm out in a rage.
Bored of Political Nonsense
Yennefer is escorting Queen Kalis and her baby daughter with a group of knights, expressing her desire to move on from cleaning up political messes after three decades. The convoy is attacked by an unknown bug-like creature that is being controlled by a mage. She portals them both to a desert area, surmising the attacker is an assassin who was sent by the king to kill Kalis as he has grown tired of her not giving him a male heir. They are followed by the assassin and its creature and continue to portal through multiple areas before arriving in a mountain-top area, where Yennefer portals away herself. As Kalis tries to bargain for her life by offering her baby as sacrifice, she is killed by the assassin and Yennefer portals back in time to save the baby from the creature, but is hit by a knife from the assassin while fleeing through another portal, emerging to find the baby killed by the knife and choosing to now forge her own path away from the Brotherhood.
An Unlikely Suitor
While seeming indifferent to the multiple lords vying for her hand, a knight named Urcheon of Erlenwald fights his way into the hall to offer his hand in marriage, keeping his face covered as it is part of his code. King Eist pulls his helmet off, revealing a face that of a porcupine, which Urcheon says stems from a curse put upon him as a young boy and that when the twelfth bell rings he will be cured. He reveals that he previously saved Eist in battle and was offered the law of surprise as a reward, with which he will be granted with something Eist has that he does not yet know. Upon returning from that battle, Eist found Calanthe was pregnant with Pavetta, hence Urcheon is owed her hand in marriage, and while Eist agrees with him and it’s revealed destiny has already brought the star-crossed lovers together prior to the ceremony, Calanthe vehemently protests and orders Urcheon killed. Geralt steps in to prevent him from being killed and a battle ensues between the two and Cintran soldiers, as well as an all-out brawl with everyone else.
A New Power Emerges
Calanthe calls a hold to the battle and approaches her daughter’s love in a seemingly peaceful manner to accept his proposal, having given her sword to Eist. However, it is revealed she is concealing a dagger at her waist and attempts to kill Urcheon, but before she can Pavetta reveals she has powers and uses them to send everyone flying and pressed against the walls, with a whirlwind guarding her and her love. Mousesack and Geralt use their combined magic to burst the whirlwind and temporarily disable Pavetta. Calanthe embraces her daughter, remarking at the fact she has received her grandmother’s powers, which skipped over the queen, and reverses her decision, choosing not to mess with destiny and allow the two to be married. During the marriage ceremony held right there in the damaged hall, Pavetta and Duny, as she calls him, kiss, turning him back into human form and breaking the curse. While initially refusing payment from Duny for his help, Geralt decides to ask for a Law of Surprise as his reward and before he can protest to it regarding a child yet again, Pavetta throws up, revealing she is in fact pregnant and leaving her child and Geralt’s destinies intertwined.
The Mysteries of Brokilon
Cirilla is awoken from a nightmarish vision of the horrors her people are suffering at the hands of Nilfgaard to find Dara drinking the waters of Brokilon, which have helped him forget the dreadful past in which Calanthe ordered the slaughtering of his people and wishes to stay with the Dryads. Ciri chooses to also drink from the water, however it seemingly has no effect on her. The leader of the Dryads takes her to a mystical tree in which she says is the root of the powerful water and Ciri drinks from it, which transports her to a magical place with a mystical tree beckoning to her.
The Walls Are Closing In
Back in Cintra, a group of Nilfgaardian mages led by Fringilla come upon Calanthe’s dead body and one of them cuts off a chunk of skin from her arm and eats it, beginning to convulse and leading one of the others to stab him to death and rip out his internal organs. They then read his stomach, which reveals that Ciri is hiding in the Brokilon Forest, and helping Cahir to formulate a plan for how to finally capture her.
