I stood on that Hill next to Vilgefortz, next to Artaud Terranova, next to Fercart, next to Enid Findabair and Philippa Eilhart, next to your Yennefer. Next to those who no longer exist – Coral, Yoël, Vanielle…
There was a moment when out of sheer terror I forgot all my spells except for one – and thanks to that spell I could have teleported myself from that horrific place back home, to my tiny little tower in Maribor.
There was a moment, when I threw up from fear, when Yennefer and Coral held me up by the shoulders and hair—”
“Stop. Please, stop.”
“No, Geralt. I won’t. After all, you want to know what happened there, on the Hill. So listen – there was a din and flames, there were flaming arrows and exploding balls of fire, there were screams and crashes, and I suddenly found myself on the ground on a pile of charred, smoking rags, and I realised that the pile of rags was Yoël and that thing next to her, that awful thing, that trunk with no arms and no legs which was screaming so horrifically was Coral. And I thought the blood in which I was lying was Coral’s blood. But it was my own. And then I saw what they had done to me, and I started to howl, howl like a beaten dog, like a battered child— Leave me alone! Don’t worry, I’m not going to cry. I’m not a little girl from a tiny tower in Maribor any more. Damn it, I’m Triss Merigold, the Fourteenth One Killed at Sodden.
There are fourteen graves at the foot of the obelisk on the Hill, but only thirteen bodies. You’re amazed such a mistake could have been made? Most of the corpses were in hard-to-recognise pieces – no one identified them. The living were hard to account for, too. Of those who had known me well, Yennefer was the only one to survive, and Yennefer was blind. Others knew me fleetingly and always recognised me by my beautiful hair. And I, damn it, didn’t have it any more!” Geralt held her closer. She no longer tried to push him away.
“They used the highest magics on us,” she continued in a muted voice, “spells, elixirs, amulets and artefacts. Nothing was left wanting for the wounded heroes of the Hill. We were cured, patched up, our former appearances returned to us, our hair and sight restored. You can hardly see the marks. But I will never wear a plunging neckline again, Geralt. Never.”
Her hair was magically restored back to it's former appearance and the injury she sustained on her chest during the battle was also healed using high magic. Her physical injuries were completely gone without leaving any scars, but she was left with a degree of mental scarring.