🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

Freya Allan is constantly surprised by the unique alchemy of The Witcher — even after three seasons of playing princess/witcher-in-training/much-prophesied teen Cirilla “Ciri” of Cintra.

But she was more than ready for her greatest challenge yet: Season 3, Episode 7, which sends Ciri on a harrowing journey through the far-flung Korath Desert. The blistering adventure is an iconic touchstone in Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher novels, which inspire the series. 

“The part I honed in on was the desert and how it’s described in the book,” Allan told Tudum in April. “I really wanted to capture the essence of it in my portrayal of it, because it’s such a pivotal point for Ciri.” 

Ciri enters the desert as a girl terrified of who she is and her own power. She leaves Korath a survivor. “The whole desert chapter is all about Ciri discovering herself,” Allan said. And one very special unicorn helps Ciri figure out who that is. 

We first meet Little Horse, Ciri’s unexpected unicorn friend, after Ciri begins to unravel in the desert. In the previous episode, Ciri unites with her adoptive parents Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra). But, after Ciri experiences a catastrophic connection with the monolith in Tor Lara, the princess is transported through space and time to the Korath Desert. Little Horse eventually appears in the lonely wasteland and quickly proves to be Ciri’s savior. He cautions her not to hide in what appears to be a pool of cool water in the hot sand  because it’s actually a bloodthirsty sun-trap monster with rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth.

While Ciri’s latest brush with death leaves her shaken, Allan couldn’t help but laugh as she reflected on filming the episode in Morocco with her unicorn co-star. “It was actually a circus horse,” she explained. A lot of on-set collaboration was necessary between Allan, The Witcher assistant director Harry Boyd, and the horse’s owners to get the perfect shot. In fact, Allan filmed extra practice with the horse to deepen her connection to the animal. After all, Little Horse is Ciri’s lifeline through one of the most traumatizing experiences in her already tragic life. 

“I laid out in the desert with it and literally spooned the bloody horse,” she recalled. “It was amazing and it was beautiful.” 

So, who is Falka? 

Although Little Horse becomes Ciri’s small ray of hope in the bleak desert, he’s not the only being she converses with in Episode 7. Ciri is also visited by Falka (Hiftu Quasem), an ancient princess and part-elf royal who resorts to brutality to take what she believe is hers. Falka also just so happens to be an ancestor of Ciri’s. She was an ancient Redanian princess and rebel leader whose name became synonymous with conflict and dark prophecy. Some suggest, however, that Falka was simply a girl abandoned by her father, King Vridank, who wanted to regain her birthright. Falka was burned at the stake for her percieved crimes and left behind a blood curse. Falka urges Ciri to follow in her vicious footsteps.

Allan believes Falka is “imaginary” — a projection of Ciri’s complicated thoughts on leadership. “Her main drive is that she wants to see the continent led in the right way … She really wants to make sure she doesn’t make the mistakes of her grandmother,” Allan said, specifically referencing how the late Queen Calanthe (Jodhi May) — the memory of whom haunts Ciri in the desert — kills elves like Ciri during her reign. 

Despite the hurt caused by Calanthe, Ciri spends Episode 7 unpacking her grief over the death of her grandmother and other loved ones like advisor Mousesack (Adam Levy). “It was very important to carry all of that into the episode because it’s all linked to her feeling abandoned by Geralt and Yennefer, really,” she said. While Ciri loves her new family, she has an unshakable fear they will turn on her or leave her like everyone else.

Falka wants Ciri to turn that pain into ecstatic destruction. As Ciri taps into fire magic, Falka shows her a vision of everyone she loves being tortured. To Falka, this fantasy is the road toward ultimate freedom. Rather than hurt those closest to her, Ciri says she relinquishes her power. 

Allan isn’t so sure Ciri’s magic is gone, though. “I think it’s more of her choosing this new path. In that moment, she’s seeing all these people she loves die and realized, ‘I don’t want to be this person with this fire magic,’ ” Allan theorized. “So she thought that that would be the way to save him by relinquishing her power.” However, the problem is “more her own mental thing more than anything,” she added.     

Ciri herself offers a hint that the embers of Falka’s rage remain within her. At the end of the Season 3 finale, she kills someone for the first time and slips on the name Falka as she joins the Rats, a ragtag outlaw group. “That last shot we see in Season 3, she’s mourning and slightly shedding the Ciri we’ve known this entire time — that innocent dreamer Ciri,” Allan said. “She doesn’t feel like Ciri anymore. She feels, suddenly, like Falka, this character she’s been talking to who’s very brutal and bloody and has killed so many people.” 

Still, Allan sounded hopeful that all isn’t lost for the most powerful girl on the Continent. As she said, “There’s layers to this, but we’ll see what happens in Season 4.” 

Who are The Rats anyway? 

The Rats are Ciri’s new “found family,” as showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Tudum in April. “They are a band of misfit teenagers,” she said. “They get up to all sorts of fun and all sorts of trouble — it's a completely different side of Ciri that we've never seen before.”  

Although Schmidt Hissrich said Allan “is so excited” to work with a whole new group of young performers like herself, the actor pointed out the complexity of Ciri’s place in her new family. After all, she isn’t going by Ciri anymore — she has taken the name Falka. 

“She wants to be someone else suddenly,” Allan said. “She doesn't even want to think about Geralt and Yennefer… She wants to just forget it all.” 

Who will Ciri — or should we say Falka — be now that she’s running with The Rats? You’ll have to plunge into The Witcher Season 4 to find out.  

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