Chapter 15: THE BORROWED NAME
"Call me Dandelion."
The village innkeeper squinted at me with the practiced suspicion of a man who'd heard too many fake names. "Dandelion. Like the flower?"
"Like the flower that grows everywhere and refuses to die." I smiled with all the charm I could muster. "I'm a traveling bard. Looking for a meal and a bed, willing to work for both."
The name had come to me on the road—different enough from Jaskier to create distance, similar enough in spirit that it wouldn't feel entirely foreign. I'd dyed my hair darker with walnut husks, traded my better clothes for plainer fare, adopted a slight accent borrowed from the eastern provinces.
A new identity. A fresh start.
The performance that night was adequate. The crowd enjoyed the music. They tipped reasonably. But something was missing.
When I reached for my power—that familiar expansion of emotional influence—it sputtered. The resonance that should have filled the room with feeling barely touched the nearest tables. The connection between my music and the audience felt thin, stretched, weak.
What's wrong?
I pushed harder. The power responded, but sluggishly, like trying to draw water from a nearly dry well. By the end of the performance, I was exhausted, and the crowd was merely satisfied rather than moved.
Afterward, in my rented room, I sat with my lute and tried to understand.
The power comes from belief. From people who know my songs, who sing them, who connect them to me.
But they don't connect them to Dandelion.
The realization hit like cold water.
My fame—my growing reputation across the Continent—was tied to the name Jaskier. That was the identity people associated with "The Burning South" and "The White Wolf's Road." That was the name attached to the bard who made audiences feel things.
Dandelion had no fame. No songs known by heart. No reservoir of belief to draw from.
Identity fuels power. Hide the identity, lose the power.
It was a cruel irony. The very thing that made me dangerous—my growing influence—was what made me visible. And the disguise meant to protect me cut me off from my own strength.
I tested the theory over the following days.
As Dandelion, my Healing Melody barely managed to soothe minor headaches. My emotional influence affected only those closest to me, and weakly at that. The Battle Hymn I'd never tested in combat felt like a distant whisper rather than a roar.
I was operating at perhaps twenty percent of my Stage 2 capacity. Maybe less.
Three days into my experiment, a child fell ill in the village. Fever, the mother said, climbing too high despite her herbs and prayers. She'd heard the visiting bard could do unusual things with music.
I tried.
The Healing Melody flowed from my throat, reaching for the child's fevered body. I felt the power trying to respond—trying to fight the infection, to cool the burning skin—but there wasn't enough. Without the belief reservoir, without the identity-linked fame, I was just a man singing to a sick child.
"I'm sorry." The words came out hollow. "I don't think I can help."
The mother nodded, disappointment and desperation warring on her face. She'd hoped for a miracle. I'd given her nothing.
I stayed two extra days anyway. Helped with mundane care—cool cloths, clean water, making sure the child ate when she could. The fever broke on the third day, thanks to the herbs and the mother's devotion more than anything I'd contributed.
She offered me her preserved apples as thanks. "You stayed. When you could have left."
"I couldn't just—" I stopped. What could I say? That I'd tried to heal her daughter with magic and failed? That my power came from fame I'd hidden? "She reminded me of someone I knew once. I'm glad she's recovering."
I accepted one apple and gave the rest back. "You'll need these for winter."
That night, alone by a stream, I made my decision.
The walnut dye came out with cold water and vigorous scrubbing. It took an hour of work, my reflection slowly shifting from dark-haired Dandelion back to cornflower-eyed Jackier. The transformation felt more significant than mere cosmetics.
I can't hide forever. Not if I want the power that comes with visibility.
The solution was obvious now. Two personas, used strategically. Dandelion for dangerous territories where Redanian spies or other threats lurked. Jackier for performances that built fame and filled my reservoir of belief. Switch between them as needed, never letting either identity dominate completely.
It was risky. Complicated. The kind of double life that left evidence and inconsistencies.
But it was better than the alternatives: either hiding completely and becoming powerless, or staying visible and becoming a target.
Fourteen months until Posada. More or less.
I needed to arrive as Jackier. Full power, full identity, ready to meet the White Wolf with everything I had. The journey there could be Dandelion when necessary, slipping through places where spies watched and questions followed.
A borrowed name for borrowed time.
I finished washing my hair and let the stream carry the last of the dye away. My reflection looked back at me—the face I'd worn for over two years now, the identity I'd built from nothing.
You can't change destiny by hiding from it. You have to be present when it arrives.
The morning sun was rising by the time I reached the road. I shouldered my pack, checked my lute case, and started walking east.
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