Syanna Blood and Wine

Journal Description

Anna Henrietta, full of sisterly love and compassion, spent years mourning the absence of Syanna, who had officially been declared missing and presumed dead. When she surfaced again, however, their reunion was not one of familial joy. Syanna despised Anna Henrietta and did not wish even to speak to her.

This reluctance might have had something to do with the fact that, moments earlier, Syanna had been unmasked as a murderer…

Though the investigation had already revealed almost all the key details of the mysterious murders – Geralt now knew their means, method and perpetrator and had even prevented their continuation – he still did not fully understand why this whole plot had been hatched in the first place. Yet he did not have to try hard to learn this last bit of information. Syanna did not hide it had been a simple matter of getting revenge on those who had forced her into exile. Vengeance is one of the oldest motives in the world, one which has brought many doom and few relief. As for Syanna, it brought her to a cell in the ducal palace.

Yet something continued to bother Geralt, a detail as minor yet difficult to dismiss as a pebble in one’s boot. Syanna had had a plan, an elaborate, precisely worked out plan… yet if so, what was its grand conclusion? By the time the witcher understood how the plan was to culminate, it was already too late. During a reconciliatory embrace, Syanna killed Anna Henrietta, the last of the people whom she blamed for her exile. Moments later she died as well, shot down by the captain of the ducal guard.

the murder of Anna Henrietta.

Luckily, Geralt was able to get her to listen to reason and she decided to await her sentence patiently. She knew her sister well and could be confident Anarietta would not let any harm come to her.
she made no secret of the fact that her elaborate murder plot was about getting revenge on the people who had forced her into exile. Vengeance is one of the oldest motives in the world and has brought many doom and few relief. It was to bring Syanna face to face with a higher vampire who was simultaneously a serial killer, her slighted beau and, it seemed, a being still deeply in love with her…

When Geralt brought Syanna to the meeting with Dettlaff, he never expected this story would end with such a finale. Though several days had passed since their last meeting, Dettlaff had not managed to rein in the wrath he felt toward Syanna. He attacked her, and if not for the magic ribbon Syanna and Geralt had purchased in the Land of a Thousand Fables, he would have torn her to shreds in an instant. Yet the ribbon had been created to transport the ducal daughters to a safe place if they were ever threatened – and what place could be safer than the most protected part of the family palace? Syanna thus escaped Dettlaff’s claws and landed straight in the palace dungeons.

What could go wrong when an ancient vampire meets the woman who took advantage of his unconditional love to manipulate him into committing a string of murders? Sometimes I get the feeling Geralt did not bother to consider this question before taking Syanna to her meeting with Dettlaff. I suppose he must have counted on love overcoming the vampire’s hurt pride. If he’d have asked me, I would have told him it wasn’t a matter of pride at all. Dettlaff had simply realized the woman he had placed on a pedestal did not actually exist. In her place was a petty and malicious weaver of plots, whom he killed without a second thought.

Sylvia Anna… A lovely name, don’t you think? This beauty should come as no surprise, given it’s the name of the daughter of a duke and the sister of a duchess. Yet the fate Syanna (as her intimates called her) met was not as beautiful as might have been suspected for one so well-born – though, as it turns out, she had in truth been born rather inopportunely. She came into this world during an eclipse and thus fell victim to the panic surrounding the Curse of the Black Sun, which was said to affect young girls from ruling families birthed in similar circumstances. Though Geralt had serious doubts whether this curse truly existed, many claimed it caused horrible mutations which filled its victims with cruelty and a desire to kill.

Syanna’s parents certainly seemed to be among the believers in the curse, for they deemed her too dangerous to be allowed to remain at court and forced her into exile. Syanna then fled to Nazair and soon, for all intents and purposes, dropped off the face of the planet.