Chapter 26: THE RITE CONTINUES — PART 2
The shadow form solidified its resistance.
Voleth Meir stopped pretending she could negotiate. Instead, she attacked—not physically, but through the psychic channels that connected us all. Visions slammed into my consciousness without warning.
Ciri, dead. Throat cut, blood pooling beneath ash-blonde hair.
I pushed the image away.
My own hands holding the blade. The First Blade fulfilling its designed purpose—elimination instead of protection.
The Mental Fortress skill flared, walls slamming up around my consciousness. False. Not real. Manufactured terror designed to break my concentration.
[MENTAL FORTRESS: ACTIVE — RESISTING INTRUSION]
[SP: 65/215... 55/215...]
"You've seen it now," Voleth Meir whispered, her voice somehow inside my head despite the Nullification field. "The truth of what you are. A weapon pointed at the thing you love. How long before the programming takes over? How long before you wake up with her blood on your hands?"
Not real. Not true. I chose protection. The choice is mine.
I counter-attacked.
Pure Nullification, pushed directly into the psychic connection she'd forced open. The technique was instinctive—something the body knew even if my conscious mind didn't understand it. I flooded the space between us with anti-magic, disrupting her presence the same way I'd disrupted the sealed door when I first woke.
Voleth Meir recoiled.
"What—" For the first time, genuine surprise flickered across her ancient features. "That's not possible. Your abilities shouldn't work in—"
"Should is a funny word," I managed through gritted teeth. "Means nothing when you're fighting for your family."
The Ciri-Link pulsed. I felt her presence on the other side of the ritual circle—fear, determination, power building as she channeled everything she had into the anchor point. Her Elder Blood sang against the banishment wards, creating a resonance that strengthened Yennefer's working.
Together. We do this together.
Something clicked into place. The Nullification field and Ciri's Elder Blood touched—not conflicting, but harmonizing. My power created a void where magic couldn't exist easily; her power filled that void with something older and purer than Voleth Meir's corruption.
A cage.
We'd built a cage the Deathless Mother couldn't escape.
"NO." Voleth Meir's form thrashed against the containment. "THIS ISN'T—YOU CAN'T—"
"Yennefer!" I shouted. "Now!"
The sorceress completed the final syllable of the incantation.
The ritual circles exploded with light. Power surged through the geometric patterns, converging on the shadow form at their center. Voleth Meir screamed—a sound that would haunt my nightmares for years to come—as the banishment tore her from Eskel's consciousness.
[SP: 25/215... 15/215... 5/215...]
I held the Nullification until the last possible moment. Until the shadow form dissolved into shrieking fragments. Until the light faded and the circles burned out and Eskel's body slumped against the chains, finally still.
Then my legs gave out.
[SP: 0/215]
[WARNING: TOTAL STAMINA DEPLETION]
[CONSCIOUSNESS FAILING]
I hit the stone floor hard. The impact should have hurt, but I was too far gone to feel it. My vision tunneled, the world reducing to a small circle of light that shrank with each heartbeat.
"COLE!"
Ciri's voice, somewhere far away. Footsteps running. Hands on my shoulders, trying to lift me.
"He's not breathing right—"
"SP exhaustion. He pushed too hard." Vesemir's voice, calm despite the chaos. "He'll recover. He saved Eskel. The damn fool saved Eskel."
Eskel. Is he okay? Did we win?
I tried to speak. Tried to ask. But the darkness was bigger than my questions, and it swallowed me whole.
The last thing I felt was Ciri's hand gripping mine, holding on like she could keep me conscious through sheer force of will.
The last thing I heard was her voice, distant and afraid: "Please be okay. Please. You promised there would be an after."
Then nothing.
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