Chapter 15: THE TRUTH (PARTIAL)
The great hall felt smaller with all of us in it.
Ciri sat near the fire, wrapped in a blanket, color slowly returning to her cheeks. I'd claimed a seat nearby—close enough that the Ciri-Link's residual connection kept her calm, far enough that Geralt's protective instincts didn't trigger. The other Witchers arranged themselves in a loose semicircle, and I didn't miss that their positions blocked every exit.
Here we go.
"So." Vesemir's voice cut through the silence. "Someone want to explain what that was?"
He wasn't looking at Ciri. He was looking at me.
"You've all seen me cast Igni without Signs," I said, keeping my voice level. "The ability that stopped Ciri's surge works on a similar principle. Anti-magic instead of fire."
"Nullification." Vesemir's eyes narrowed. "I've read about such abilities in very old texts. Pre-Conjunction. They weren't supposed to be possible anymore."
"Neither was I."
Lambert shifted. "That's a hell of an ability to just... have. How long have you known about it?"
"Since I broke through the seal on my chamber." I spread my hands, showing empty palms. "It activated instinctively. I didn't know what it was at the time—just that pushing against the magic made the magic stop."
"And the connection to Ciri?" Geralt's voice was carefully neutral, but I heard the edge beneath it. "That wasn't just proximity. I saw you reach her."
The room waited. Ciri's eyes found mine, wide with questions she hadn't had time to ask.
"I don't fully understand it," I admitted. "But it started the moment I woke up. Before I even knew she existed." I chose my next words carefully, walking the line between truth and the parts I couldn't reveal. "There's a... pull. A sense of where she is, what she's feeling. When her power erupted, the connection amplified. I felt her panic like it was my own."
"That's how you knew to come," Eskel said quietly.
"That's how I knew."
Silence stretched. The fire crackled. Ciri pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"What did it feel like?" she asked. "When you... when you reached me?"
I met her gaze directly. She deserved honesty, even if it wasn't complete.
"Like holding a door open in a hurricane. Your power wanted to tear everything apart, including itself. I just... gave it something stable to push against instead of everything else."
"You didn't try to control me."
"No." The word came out firm. "That's not what it's for."
"Then what is it for?"
The question hung in the air. I felt the weight of ancient decisions pressing down—elven architects debating protection and destruction, leaving the choice to someone they'd never know.
"I think..." I paused, organizing thoughts I'd barely articulated to myself. "I think my body was designed to interact with Elder Blood. To sense it, track it, respond to it." I looked at Vesemir. "You mentioned old records. Pre-Conjunction experiments. That matches what I've been finding in my fragmented memories."
Vesemir's expression sharpened. "You've been recovering memories?"
"Fragments. Nothing complete." True enough—the one memory I'd accessed was hardly the whole picture. "But the pieces that are coming back suggest this body is very old. Older than the modern Witcher mutations. Built for a specific purpose related to Elder Blood."
"What purpose?"
The question came from Geralt, and it carried weight that pressed against my chest. Protection or destruction. The choice that had been left to me.
"Protection." I held his gaze without flinching. "At least, that's what I've chosen. Whatever the original designers intended, the decision was left to whoever woke. I choose to protect."
Geralt studied me for a long moment. The fire cast shadows across his features, making his expression impossible to read. Behind him, Lambert and Eskel waited, hands near weapons, ready to act if their brother gave the signal.
This is the moment. Either he believes me or he doesn't.
"When her power erupted," Geralt said slowly, "you ran toward her. Not away."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because she needed help." Simple. True. Not the whole truth, but the truth that mattered. "And because whatever I am, I'm not going to stand by while someone suffers when I might be able to do something about it."
More silence. The tension in the room coiled tighter, ready to snap in either direction.
Then Ciri spoke.
"He didn't take over." Her voice was quiet but steady, drawing every eye. "When he reached me through the... the connection. He didn't try to control my power or shut it down. He just..." She struggled for words. "He gave me room. Space to find my own control again. Like someone holding the door steady while you figure out how to close it yourself."
Geralt's attention shifted to his daughter. Something complicated moved behind his eyes—love, worry, the desperate need to protect warring with the recognition that she was growing into someone who might not always need protecting.
"Is that accurate?" Vesemir asked me.
"I think so. The Nullification doesn't suppress Elder Blood—not directly. It creates a zone where magic loses its momentum. When I extended that around Ciri, it dampened the overflow without cutting off the source."
"Remarkable." Vesemir's voice carried scholarly fascination beneath the Witcher wariness. "If your ability can genuinely stabilize Elder Blood surges without suppressing the underlying power..."
"Then he could help train her," Eskel finished.
All eyes turned to Geralt.
The White Wolf stood motionless, processing. I watched his internal debate play out in the tension of his shoulders, the way his jaw worked, the flicker of his gaze between Ciri and me.
Finally, he moved. Crossed the distance between us in three long strides and stopped directly in front of my chair.
"You said the choice was left to whoever woke." His voice was low, meant for my ears alone despite the room full of enhanced senses. "Designed to interact with Elder Blood. What does that mean—protect or destroy?"
The question I'd dreaded since reading the memory fragment. I could lie, deflect, offer comfortable half-truths. But Geralt would know. Witchers always knew.
"Both," I admitted. "The original design included... contingencies. If the Elder Blood became a threat to everything, the weapon was supposed to end it."
Geralt's hand moved toward his sword. I didn't flinch.
"But that's not my choice," I continued. "The designers left the decision to the consciousness that woke. They couldn't predict who that would be or what they would want." I met his yellow eyes without wavering. "I'm not the weapon they built. I'm the person who woke up inside it. And I choose protection. Not because I was programmed to. Because it's right."
The moment stretched. Geralt's hand hovered near his blade.
Then he stepped back.
"I'll be watching," he said. Not a threat exactly—more like a statement of fact. "If you ever give me reason to doubt that choice..."
"Then you do what you have to do." I nodded, accepting the terms. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
Geralt turned and walked to Ciri's side, settling into a protective position that placed himself between her and me. But the sword stayed in its sheath. And when he caught Vesemir's eye, something passed between them that I couldn't interpret.
"She needs proper rest," Geralt said. "We can discuss training arrangements tomorrow."
"Agreed." Vesemir rose, the signal that the interrogation had ended. "Everyone out. Let her sleep."
The Witchers filed toward the exits. Lambert clapped my shoulder as he passed—not friendly exactly, but acknowledging. Eskel nodded once. Vesemir paused at the door.
"You'll join her sessions," the old Witcher said. "Starting tomorrow. If your ability can help stabilize her during training, we'd be fools not to use it."
"Understood."
"And Cole?" He waited until I met his eyes. "Whatever else you are, whatever memories are still locked away—the choice you described? That's what matters. What you do with what you're given." A hint of warmth crept into his ancient voice. "You chose well today. Don't make us regret trusting that choice."
He left. The great hall emptied until only Ciri and I remained, the fire crackling between us.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asked, exhaustion and hope mixing in her voice.
I smiled despite the weight still pressing on my shoulders. "Same time tomorrow."
She rose, pulling the blanket tighter, and headed for the door to her quarters. At the threshold, she paused.
"Cole?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you." Simple words, but they carried more weight than anything else spoken that day. "For choosing protection."
Then she was gone, and I sat alone with the fire and the echoes of a choice that would define everything that came after.
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