Chapter 17: THE TRAINING BOND
The first session nearly ended in disaster.
Ciri's powers had been stable since the crisis—whatever combination of shock, exhaustion, and the Link's intervention had left her magic dormant for two days. But dormant wasn't the same as controlled, and the moment she tried to consciously activate it, the old patterns reasserted themselves.
"Breathe," I said, watching the telltale signs of escalation—trembling hands, tightening jaw, the faint shimmer in the air that meant reality was about to become suggestions. "Focus on the breath."
"I'm trying—"
"Stop trying. Just breathe." I kept my voice steady, holding the Nullification field ready but not active. "You're treating your power like an enemy. It's not. It's part of you."
The shimmer intensified. Objects around the training yard began to rattle.
"Cole—"
"I'm here." I stepped closer, into the zone where the Link resonated strongest. "Feel me? That stability you reached for during the crisis? It's still there. Use it."
Ciri's eyes found mine. For a moment, we existed in a space that wasn't quite the training yard—somewhere the Link created between us, where emotions flowed without words and intention spoke louder than language.
The rattling stopped. The shimmer faded.
"There." I smiled. "That was you. Not the power controlling you—you controlling the power."
She stood there for a moment, breathing hard, processing what had just happened. Then a laugh escaped her—startled, relieved, wondering.
"I felt it," she said. "Like... like holding something instead of being held by it."
"That's the goal. Every time." I stepped back, giving her space. "Now let's do it again."
The sessions developed a rhythm over the following days.
Mornings started with breathing exercises—techniques I'd learned in the Rangers, adapted for someone whose stress response could tear holes in reality. We practiced grounding: feet on stone, weight distributed, awareness extending into the earth beneath us. We practiced focus: picking a point, holding attention, refusing to let the mind scatter.
[SKILL PROGRESSION: NULLIFICATION CONTROL +5%]
The system tracked my own improvement alongside Ciri's. Using the Nullification in controlled bursts, rather than desperate all-or-nothing activations, was teaching me precision I hadn't known I needed.
"Again," I called as Ciri prepared another attempt at conscious teleportation.
She'd started with small objects—pebbles, leaves, a wooden cup Lambert had contributed with suspicious eagerness. The cup had exploded on the first attempt, which explained the eagerness. But by the third day, she could move a stone from one side of the yard to the other without destroying anything.
"Focus on where you want it to be. Then want it there."
Ciri's brow furrowed. The stone shivered, rose an inch off her palm, and vanished.
A moment later, it reappeared on the target platform fifteen feet away.
"Yes!" The triumph in her voice was pure. Unguarded. The sound of someone succeeding at something they'd been afraid they couldn't do.
I grinned despite myself. "That wasn't the universe doing something to you. That was you doing something to the universe."
She laughed, breathless from the exertion, and accepted my offered hand to pull herself up from the crouch she'd dropped into.
"Can I try something bigger?"
"Let's see what you've got."
Geralt started joining the sessions on the fourth day.
I'd expected him to observe from a distance—protective, watchful, ready to intervene if something went wrong. Instead, he positioned himself at the edge of the training area and asked a simple question:
"How can I help?"
The three of us developed combination drills that none of us could have imagined alone. Ciri would channel power; I would stabilize the field; Geralt would execute strikes that tested her concentration under pressure. It was chaotic at first—miscommunication, near-misses, one memorable incident where Ciri accidentally teleported Geralt's sword into a water barrel—but gradually, something emerged.
A rhythm. A partnership. Something that felt almost like family working in sync.
[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE: GERALT +5]
[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE: CIRI +5]
"Again," Geralt called, assuming my usual role while I caught my breath. The Nullification work drained stamina faster than sword forms.
"Again," Ciri agreed, wiping sweat from her forehead, determination burning in her eyes.
We ran the drill again. And again. And again, until the sun dropped below the mountains and Vesemir's voice called us in for dinner.
I noticed Eskel's behavior on the sixth day.
It started small—distraction during conversations, moments where his attention drifted to corners of the room that held nothing visible. He snapped at Lambert over something trivial, apologized immediately, then walked away without explanation.
The Ciri-Link pulsed with unease during training that afternoon. Not Ciri's emotion—something else. Something that felt like hunger and patience and cold, calculating interest.
I filed it away, watching more carefully after that.
That night, I found Eskel in the secondary hall, staring into a dark corner with his lips moving in words too quiet even for enhanced hearing to catch. His posture was wrong—shoulders hunched, spine curved, like someone trying to make themselves smaller.
"Eskel?"
He startled like I'd fired a crossbow beside his ear. For a moment—just a moment—his eyes held something I didn't recognize. Then it was gone, replaced by the Eskel I knew.
"What? Nothing. I'm fine."
He wasn't. And the wrongness I'd felt through the Link crystallized into certainty.
Something is in this keep. And it's interested in more than just Cir
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