Ciri Holds Her Sword in Dim Blue Light — Print & Oil Painting

A single flame burns in a bracket high in the left corner, small and orange against a wall of near-black, the one lamp this picture will admit to. Everything else arrives as a broad cool wash from the front, which leaves the room behind her unreadable and spends all the description on the surfaces nearest the viewer.

The crop is tight: hip to crown, filling a tall frame. Her right arm is up and back, the hand closed on a grip behind the shoulder, and of the sword itself we get a gold ring pommel and a short length of blue-white edge at the left margin. The bracer over that forearm is the most worked passage in the whole piece, tooled leather gone shiny at the knuckles and split along its seams.

She wears a dark sleeveless top, plain and close, with a thin strap and a small steel ring at the collarbone, and a wide leather bandolier crossing down to the hip. The belt is where the brush slows again: broad tan leather, a row of square silver plates, a green stone set in each one and catching what light there is.

The head is turned three-quarters and lit softly. Green eyes inside a smoky shadow, one corner of the mouth lifted, white hair pushed back and escaping in strands across the cheek. It is not a fighting expression at all; it is the face of someone who has just been spoken to and has not answered yet. Filed in our The Witcher collection beside Geralt's eyes glowing beneath a dark hood for another head kept in the dark, and Ciri sitting with a wolf spirit and a raven for the same stillness with company.