After Chapter IV

In this chapterGeralt confronts Jacques de Aldersberg, the Order's Grand Master, who reveals himself as the head of Salamandra.

Geralt follows the evidence to the Order's Grand Master, Jacques de Aldersberg, and discovers that the head of Salamandra is the leader of Vizima's holy knights. Jacques explains his reasons: an endless winter, the White Frost, is coming, and humanity must be made stronger to survive it.

The revelation of his identity is a time-loop twist. Jacques is Alvin, grown up, who travelled back in time by accident and spent decades preparing for the catastrophe he escaped. Geralt defeats him, but the fact that the Frost is real hangs over the ending.

The twist reframes every earlier scene with Alvin. The boy the player protected is the villain the player defeats, and Geralt's choice of guardian helped create the man who attacked Kaer Morhen. It is a story about cause and effect that stays human: what you do for a child shapes the adult.

The White Frost is introduced here as a distant prophecy, and the saga later makes it the central threat of The Witcher 3. Reading it back, Jacques is a failed first attempt to answer the same question as Ciri's story: what can stop a catastrophe that kills worlds?

Jacques is neither forgiven nor simply condemned. His methods are monstrous, but his fear is real. Geralt's response, to stop him without denying the threat, sets the tone for the sequels.

In this chapterKing Foltest is attacked by an assassin who turns out to be another witcher.

The epilogue wraps up the factional fights and shows how Vizima looks after the Order's fall. Geralt's choices about Triss, Shani and the Scoia'tael determine who stands beside him. Then comes the hook: a witcher attempts to assassinate King Foltest. The idea that a member of Geralt's own guild would kill a king opens the main plot of the next game.

The epilogue emphasises that Geralt's victories are partial. Salamandra is gone, but its ideas and its technology have escaped into the world. Another witcher with a mission is already moving in the shadows.

The scene also introduces the long game of the series: kings die, treaties are broken and the Continent drifts toward war. Geralt, who tries to stay neutral, finds that neutrality is impossible in a world where witchers are weapons. As an ending, it lacks the finality of most single games and leans into serial storytelling, which is why it works as the first chapter of a saga.