Conjunction

Chapter 17 - The Trial of Changes

The next day the trial was over. Triss found Geralt in the bath bolting new sconces to the walls. The room had been cleaned and decorated as lavishly as he could manage with the meager supplies available in the castle. There were torches lit around the room and several large candelabras placed in the corners that blazed with light. He'd placed pots planted with glowing mushrooms around the sides of the pool near the pillars to add more light. Triss had thoughtfully conjured vines of fragrant jasmine that entwined around each of the columns, and the overall effect was far more than he had expected to achieve in such a short time.

"She's asleep," Triss said quietly from the doorway. "When she wakes up you can take her up to her room. Or here would be even better... the warm water will help ease the pain."

He nodded and continued his work. He bolted the final sconce to the wall and placed the torch in it, then turned to survey the room. Deciding it was finally ready he walked to the lab.

Solona was sitting up, her head bowed and her shoulders sagging. Her fingers gripped the edge of the table hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

She didn't move when he went to stand before her, only saying in a hitching whisper to the floor, "I hurt, Geralt. Every cell in my body hurts. Now I understand why there are so few Witchers."

"The pain will pass before you know it," he said quietly. "The tricky part will be getting used to the changes to your body." In a somewhat more relieved tone, he said, "The worst is over, at least."

She took a deep, ragged breath and coughed softly. "Ugh, I reek. I would give anything for a bath right now."

She made a feeble attempt to stand and he caught her, lifting her in his arms just as her legs gave out beneath her. He held her as delicately as though she were made of glass. She rested her head on his chest and clung tightly to him with her hands.

"Well I have just the thing, then," he whispered in her ear as he began walking out of the room with her.

Her senses seemed to be at war with each other as he carried her down the corridor. There were the sounds of Triss working in the lab, clinking glass and pouring liquids; the acrid smells of whatever solutions Triss was working with, on top of the scent of Geralt's leathery musk, and her own more pungent sickly odor; and the constant flashing of lights beyond her closed eyelids. All of it combined in a chaotic cacophony of sensory input that made her feel like she was being drawn in every different direction. She clung desperately to him, feeling as though if she didn't she might fly into a million pieces. The only sense that wasn't causing her complete torture at the moment was her sense of touch. With the feel of his arms holding her she felt grounded again for the first time in days.

So she clung to him and made an effort to block out everything else but the feel of his arms holding her and his familiar smell and the sound of his slow, even heartbeat beneath her ear where it rested against his chest. Finally the other sensations began to recede and she sighed deeply at the relief, and a new scent abruptly reached her nose.

"Mmm... something smells pretty. Not that anything wouldn't smell prettier than I do right now. I'm surprised you can stand to be near me." She let out a soft chuckle that made him smile. At least she seemed to be in good spirits in spite of everything, he thought.

The light beyond her closed eyelids brightened and she felt him stop walking and hesitate for a second.

"Do you think you can stand on your own?" he asked gently.

"Maybe?" she answered. He set her down just inside the room and noticed she still had her eyes screwed tightly shut. She stood for a second before wavering and he caught her again before she fell.

"Or maybe not," she said with a wry laugh.

He carried her to a bench near the wall by the door and set her gently on it. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the bench, followed by his boots and leather trousers, leaving only the light, knee-length cloth breeches he wore beneath them. The sound of him disrobing prompted her to tilt her head up and open one eye a crack.

Everything was still out of focus. It made her feel like she was extremely drunk without the pleasant euphoria that usually accompanied that sensation. She blinked several times until he finally came into focus but he still had an odd, flashing halo around him.

"Hmmm... you do give new meaning to the phrase 'a sight for sore eyes'," she said appreciatively and opened her eyes wider, trying to take in his muscular, half-naked form through the haze.

He understood instantly why she had kept her eyes closed. Her eyes were the same shade of gold they had been, but her pupils were now vertical slits that seemed to expand and contract of their own volition.

He smiled down at her. "You'll learn to control your eyes to let in the right amount of light."

"My eyes?" she asked, not understanding at first, then the realization struck and she raised one hand up gingerly to her face. "Are my eyes... like yours now? Is that why they hurt so much and the whole world's all... woobly?"

He nodded. "They're very pretty eyes," he said softly.

She met his gaze with a smile, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again her pupils seemed to have stabilized into narrow slits to manage the brighter illumination of the room around her. They widened abruptly when she finally took in the sights.

She let out a soft gasp. "Oh my! This is beautiful! What did you do? Conjure this out of our dream the other night?"

He laughed softly and shook his head. "No... this was always here. I think my dream was part memory. I uncovered the real thing sometime yesterday and spent the rest of the time cleaning and repairing it. It's been decades since I saw it last, but it was nowhere near this nice back then."

She plucked impatiently at her shift and he bent down to help her disrobe, then scooped her back up into his arms and carried her down the low, wide steps into the water. He sighed at the feel of her soft, naked skin resting against his own but managed to control the urge to touch her more than absolutely necessary.

She let out a soft groan of pleasure when he set her down on one of the benches, the hot water coming up to just cover her bare breasts. She leaned her head back against the edge of the pool and sighed deeply.

"This feels so amazing. Thank you." She tilted her head back up and opened her eyes to see him sitting quietly on the bench opposite hers. Her brow twitched slightly at the sight of him still in his breeches sitting in the water. But rather than comment on his attire, she asked, "Is there soap?"

He nodded and stood up, wading back over to her bench where he reached behind her to a small basket that contained a soft cloth and a bar of the soap she liked. He held them up for her to see.

She smiled back at him and said, "You've thought of everything haven't you?"

He cleared his throat softly, "So... do you need help with this, too?" His expression was both hopeful and wary. He was willing to do anything for her but was still hesitant to test their new boundaries.

She studied him intently for a second then turned her back to him. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, "Just get my back first. I think I can handle the rest."

He obliged, lathering up the cloth with the soap and applying it to her bare back, rubbing slowly and gently.

"You are the very picture of restraint, Geralt," she commented softly. "If our roles were reversed I'm not sure I'd be able to control myself."

His light scrubbing slowed and he shrugged, then realized she couldn't see him and cleared his throat, saying, "I suppose I've gained some perspective these past few days. That doesn't make it easier, really." He cleared his throat again. "But it's made me realize there are more important things to focus on. Lay back..."

He supported her shoulders while she dipped her head back in the water. Her hair floated out around her head in a wispy white halo. Their eyes met for a second and she smiled up at him. He was oddly surprised at the feel of comfort it gave him to just be with her again, and even more surprised that he felt more content than aroused, even after the sight of her pert breasts rising above the water as she lay back for him. He guessed it was probably just relief that her trial was finally over and she had made it through. She sat back up and he lathered up her hair with the soap, gently massaging her scalp, as well as her neck and shoulders, amidst soft groans of pleasure from her.

"Solona..." he said quietly after she'd sat up again from rinsing her hair and had taken over washing herself. She turned her head to face him, her brows raised in inquiry. He seemed pensive for some reason and she sensed a kind of distracted introspection that was unusual for him.

"Ever since the other night... the night before your trial began... my memories have been returning."

She paused for a second and asked, "That's a good thing, right?"

He gave her a small, rueful smile. "Yes, it is... but not all the memories are good. The two women who mattered the most to me died trying to save me. I didn't understand why at the time... it would have destroyed me if I had remembered them."

She reached out and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "But you remember now..."

He swallowed hard and she could see the pain plainly evident on his face. "Yes... and they knew what they were doing. They gave everything for me... for us. And they never even knew you."

He spoke again, his words coming out rough and slow as he stared at the rippling water before him. "You are so much like her... like them both. Triss already saw it but didn't mention it to me until yesterday when I told her. She thinks it isn't an accident that I'm regaining my memories now. She believes it was inevitable once you showed up and..." he hesitated briefly and glanced at her before continuing, "once my feelings for you finally overshadowed my feelings for Ciri and Yen. Flemeth got to them somehow, and I'm almost positive she's the reason for my amnesia, too."

His feelings for me? she thought, and remembered her previous conversation with Triss. She winced internally at the memory of what the other woman had said about how Geralt felt. She had tried to tell herself that all they had been doing since... well since they met, had been fooling around; that they were just two people caught up in a crazy situation and finding in each other a nice distraction from the gravity of their circumstances. But there was a small voice in her that told her she knew better than that. She knew it from the smallest moments when he had let his guard down with her, or she with him. She could admit that she cared for him deeply, but she had let herself become too close to him, she thought. It's one thing to be a good friend to someone, and something entirely different when you let them in to such a degree that you begin to redefine each other entirely based on a kind of mutual need. Something in his current mood told her, however, that this was a time for her to let him in. As a good friend should, she told herself.

"Did Flemeth mention something in the grimoire about your memory? Is that how you know?" Solona asked, knowing that many secrets had been revealed among the pages of the book, including the fact that Flemeth was actually Geralt's mother.

He shook his head. "She mentioned having to make certain regrettable decisions to ensure our paths would cross. She explains what a few of those decisions were - the ones concerning you, but not the ones concerning me. But I've had flashes of memory of the things that happened the day I died... the day they died... for awhile - since before we met. I thought it meant my memories were finally returning, but until now I never got more than the few scraps that would come to me in dreams. But when we were talking the other day, the missing pieces started filling in. And I think remembering that day was the key to remembering everything that came before it."

He began recounting the memory of that fateful day while Solona listened.

His body lay in the cold mud in the middle of the battle-strewn streets of Rivia, the sounds of the riot whirled in the air around him. His torso was pierced through from the peasant's pitchfork and his life's blood flowed from him. He heard Yennefer's panic-stricken voice calling out to him, "Don't you fucking die on me, Geralt! Don't do it! I will never forgive you if you do!" He felt her hands ripping open his leather armor and his shirt to reach the wounds and heard her incantation as she attempted to heal him.

He could feel the searing depth of his wounds. She wouldn't be able to heal him - not as bad as they were - and he feared she would kill herself trying. He struggled to speak, to tell her to leave him, to save herself, but his throat wouldn't work.

Yennefer's frantic casting continued and he struggled to remain conscious but felt himself fading. He could hear her soft sobs in between her incantation and thought he heard her say, "The prophecy... you can't die... you have to live for her damn you!" He watched, helpless, as a blade pierced her body and she slumped over him, convulsed violently, then grew still. He struggled to see who had wielded the blade but there was only chaos continuing to rampage around them. He tried to reach out to her, to call for her, but his body wasn't responding to his commands. His mind reeled at what was happening and he only managed to choke out a small sob.

A lovely, concerned face framed by ashen hair appeared in his field of vision and Ciri's familiar voice spoke calmly and serenely in his ear, "I can't let you die, Geralt. Aen Henbeanna has a task for you." The three of them were engulfed in a bright mist and he felt himself lifted and floating as though on water. He felt the pain in his body begin to recede just before the world faded away.

When he regained consciousness he was in another place, on the misty shore of a lake. It was eerily serene, and utterly quiet except for the soft rattling sounds of small stones being pushed about in the water that lapped along the shore. He sat up slowly and shook his head. He was barefoot and dressed only in his trousers. There were two still forms lying on the ground a ways away, one facing the other, arms wrapped around it in a gentle embrace. The water of the lake lapped steadily at two pairs of pale, bare feet.

A buzz of black dread started at the base of his skull as he began to crawl towards them across the wet, rocky shore. When he reached them, the dread turned into a thunderous howl inside his mind, blocking out everything but the utter despair at the sight of the lifeless bodies of the woman he loved and the girl he had thought of as a daughter. He managed to draw a ragged breath finally and let it out again in an anguished cry.

"No... Yen..." he sobbed as he gathered her into his arms and buried his face in her dark hair, inhaling deeply her familiar scent of lilac and gooseberries. He turned his head to where the other figure lay against the one he held and reached out to grip Ciri's cold hand within his own. Her blank eyes stared at the sky.

He sat rocking Yennefer's body in his arms, his chest racked with sobs. "Why?" He repeated the word over and over through his hitching cries and barely noticed the figure that had materialized behind him.

"My child," he heard a dry, feminine voice speak behind him. In a gentle tone the voice said, "They gave themselves willingly for you so that you might live."

He shook his head sharply and asked again through his tears, "Why?"

She spoke tenderly when she answered. "Because you are meant for something greater, my sweet boy. They knew this. Yennefer knew you never truly belonged to her - to either of them. You belong to the White Queen. She who is beloved of kings, touched by dragons. She is your destiny. You were dying and they knew that couldn't be. Your death would plunge the worlds into an abyss they would not recover from. It would doom us all."

He didn't care. He was broken without them. He would rather be dead. The world meant nothing without the two of them in it. He continued holding Yennefer's still form in his arms and gently rocking her as he sobbed into her hair.

There was a soft sigh from behind him and the voice said, "This is going to be harder than I anticipated." He felt a hand gently squeeze his shoulder and the world went dark again.

His voice was thick with emotion as he spoke. "The next time I woke up I was back in Kaer Morhen and they were gone, and the rest of my past along with them."

He shook his head and rubbed at the scar on his forehead. Solona saw the muscles of his jaw clench and unclench spasmodically. "Now that I can remember that day, I know it was Flemeth who took my memory from me, and I hate it. I hate her. If I ever see her again I will kill her, even if she is my mother, and even if I understand why she did it. Sometimes I feel like we're just pawns in some game she's playing."

Solona finished washing and slid off the bench, holding her breath and submerging herself under the water to rinse off the soap suds. The pain was gradually receding from her body and she could feel her strength returning. She held her breath for several seconds and floated beneath the surface before tilting her head back and coming up again, water sluicing off her milky white skin. Geralt's eyes skimmed over her wet, naked form for a second and he let out a small sigh. He would give anything to be able to drown himself in her right now, but knew he couldn't. He would have to content himself with her company, but at least that was some comfort to him. She squirted a fountain of water from her mouth in Geralt's general direction, then slicked the water off her face before sitting next to him again.

She said, "Flemeth wasn't very forthcoming with details on what she stands to gain from this, so there's no telling with her. I just know she wants something out of it besides merely seeing the prophecy fulfilled, and whatever it is she wants, she needs us to help her accomplish it."

"Do you actually trust her?" he asked gruffly.

She sat thinking for a moment before she said, "I don't like her, but yes, I do trust her. She obviously has her own agenda, but her primary motivation is the prophecy. Whatever her ulterior motive is, she won't jeopardize fulfillment of the prophecy."

She could see that he was struggling with the feelings that had emerged with the recovery of his memories. She was no stranger to loss, herself. She reached out again and gripped his hand tightly in hers where it rested on the bench between them. Their destinies were being fulfilled at the expense of four of the people that meant the most to them in their lives. It had been a betrayal of the worst kind, even though they both understood that the stakes were so high that some sacrifices were necessary. It still didn't make it any easier to deal with the loss.

"We still have each other," she offered softly.

His voice was low and tight with the effort of controlling his grief when he answered. "We do have each other." He reached out to her then, a surge of small waves erupting in the water as he pulled her onto his lap and into a tight embrace. The sudden gesture surprised her at first, but she returned his embrace. She felt him shudder softly when she wrapped her arms around his neck and began stroking his hair, then he buried his face in her shoulder and quietly wept, the wetness of his tears mingling with the water trickling down over her skin.

Triss departed the next day after leaving detailed instructions on how Solona should take the mutagens. The Witcher mutations, called the Trial of Changes, would normally occur over the course of a few years while a young Witcher initiate was still growing, but they didn't have time for that so were forced to improvise. Triss had spent the previous night in the lab preparing the mutagenic potions out of the ingredients that were in stock, and had spent the morning instructing Solona on the spells required to administer them properly.

Solona looked concerned when Triss first described the spell she would need to cast.

"That sounds like blood magic..." she said, dubiously.

Triss looked perplexed. "Well... I guess you could call it that since it requires your blood to work. But this is the way it needs to be done."

Solona was uncertain for a moment, and sat thinking. Blood magic was something she'd only hesitated to attempt before because of the stigma associated with it, which she admitted she didn't really believe to begin with. She was nowhere near the Chantry or any Templars now, and doing magic in this world didn't require accessing the Fade and exposing herself to potential demonic influences. She finally realized she was still a victim of ignorance and nodded resolutely.

"Okay, show me," she said.

The spell itself seemed completely benign, it turned out. Before taking each potion, she would need to add a drop of her own blood to it, and then recite a very specific incantation for each one and infuse it with a small bit of magic. She was to take only one potion each week to allow her body time to acclimate to the changes that would occur. Normally Witcher initiates would have a few months to adjust, but she didn't have time for that if they wished to accomplish their goal by Midsummer, and they had no choice about the timeline. Triss theorized that with Solona using her own magic to quicken the potions, it was possible their effects would be more potent and easier for her to adjust to, and urged Solona to take notes of the entire process.

Triss had arranged all the potions in a small crate, in the order they were to be taken. Each small glass bottle was corked and sealed with red wax, and was wrapped in a slip of paper upon which its incantation was written. The instructions were tied with a piece of string to the side of each bottle. There were still two gaps in the arrangement, with two slips of paper that didn't have bottles to accompany them; those slips of paper included the recipes for the potions in addition to the incantations for the two mutagens they had yet to acquire. There were ten potions altogether that Solona would need to take. The two missing mutagens were to be at week five and week ten, so they still had time in which to hunt for them.

When Triss left, she hugged them each fiercely, even squatting down to let Lusa give her a sloppy kiss goodbye. When she said goodbye to Solona she whispered in her ear, "Don't forget what I told you. You can find happiness together - I'm sure of it." Then she stepped through her portal back to Vizima.

"Is there any reason we shouldn't go hunt for the last two mutagens now?" Solona asked later when they were cleaning up after dinner.

Geralt shook his head. "No, there isn't," he said, handing her the small stack of plates that had just completed the Lusa pre-wash for her to dunk in the basin of soapy dishwater.

"In fact we should go before winter sets in," he said. "As soon as you're feeling up to it, we'll head out. In the meantime I think it's due time we scheduled daily training yard practice to make sure you're comfortable with your changes."

She shot a playful look over her shoulder to where he stood with a dish towel drying the clean dishes.

"You think I need practice, do you?" She flicked wet fingers at his face causing him to blink as the small droplets struck his skin.

"Yes, I think you need practice." He grinned back at her and twisted the towel into a rope between his hands then flicked it sharply at her backside. Her eyes flashed dangerously as her hand whipped around and caught it in a blink before it made contact. Suddenly he found himself disarmed and being assaulted with his own weapon.

"Ah hah!" she exclaimed, delighted that she'd gotten the upper hand on him. "Maybe you're the one who needs some practice," she taunted.

She brandished her weapon at him menacingly and he grabbed the closest thing he could find to defend himself. He danced backwards and sideways, easily parrying each flick of the dishtowel with a long-handled iron ladle gripped in his fist. He evened the score when the dishtowel flicked out and wrapped around the handle of his weapon and he was able to yank it out of her hands. She let out an indignant little yell as he grinned at her.

"Looks like you need to work on your form a bit," he chided.

She'd be damned if she would let him have the last word. She reached towards the corner of the room behind her and with a small force of will a broomstick hurtled into her hand. She gripped it in both hands and faced off with him, a determined set to her jaw. They circled around each other, on guard and searching out weaknesses. He saw an opening when she dropped her shoulder ever so slightly on one side and he lunged, but she brought the broom up quickly to block his attack, then ducked, sweeping the broom low and aiming for his shins. He leaped into the air, dodging her attack effortlessly, but had to swiftly raise his weapon to block the upswing as the broom arced up from the floor, aiming at his chin. The force of his parry pushed her back a step and he advanced. He had her on the defensive now, striking blow after blow which she was forced to block as she retreated. She felt quicker now, but her reflexes were still no match for his and his barrage of attacks was wearing her down quickly.

Her back hit the wall and she cried out in frustration as she realized he had her cornered, their weapons locked together.

He grinned at her in triumph. "Looks like I've got you at a disadvantage. Do you cede?"

He pressed closer, the handle of the ladle pushing hard against her broomstick. His greater strength and the weight of his body behind his weapon forced her to bend her arms, the broomstick now pressed against her chest and their faces mere inches from each other. She grunted at the effort to hold him off and met his gaze, defiant. When their eyes met, she saw the glint of lust in his and relaxed her grip on her weapon slightly, tilting her head up and parting her lips invitingly. He eased his grip on his own weapon and bent his head towards hers, his lips already tingling in anticipation.

He felt one of her legs twist around his and her hips rubbed softly against his, the contact tortuously arousing. He closed his eyes as his lips brushed hers.

The room suddenly tilted and his eyes flew open in alarm. An instant later he found himself with the cold stone floor at his back and Solona standing over him with the broom handle aimed at his throat. A smug smile played across her lovely features.

"Looks like you need to learn better self control," she smirked at him.

They heard the sound of clapping accompanied by hearty laughter coming from the doorway to the kitchen.

"She has you dead to rights, Wolf!" Vesemir called out.

Geralt glared at them both, but knew she had been right. He'd just been brutally reminded of how little self control he had when it came to her, and that would never do if they were going to spend the entire winter trapped in this castle together. She leaned the broom back in the corner and stretched out a hand to help him up. He averted his gaze from hers, still cursing at himself for showing such weakness that she hadn't also given in to. He felt a light squeeze on his forearm and heard her soft whisper, "It wasn't easy... if I didn't hate losing so much, Vesemir might have gotten a very different show." He met her eyes and saw them twinkle with suppressed laughter at the suggestion of his mentor witnessing them in the act yet again. He laughed softly and nodded at her before striding over to the wash basin to finish the dishes.

Vesemir still stood grinning in the doorway. "What a fantastic show! She has the makings of a true Witcher, Wolf. I'd like to put a sword in her hand and see what she can do with it."

"I like my staff just fine," she said in response. "I'm used to it, and it's every bit as deadly as one of your swords. Besides, I use it for more than just beating on things."

Vesemir nodded at her sagely. "Perhaps we could make some improvements to it... to make it more suitable for Witcher work. Do you mind if I take a look at it while you're here?"

"Not at all," she answered, not quite knowing what he meant by "more suitable for Witcher work" but curious nonetheless.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw an object flying at her through the air and reflexively reached out to catch the wet dish Geralt had just flung at her head.

"Hey!" she yelled, "You could've knocked me out with that!"

"Just testing," he said blithely, his shoulders shaking with mirth as he scrubbed another dish.

"Sore loser," she grumbled and grabbed the towel, resisting the urge to smack him with it. Better not start something again, she thought, knowing it could lead down paths they'd best try to avoid.

Early the next morning she took the first mutagen, following the instructions precisely. She noted that this was the one made from the Koshchey heart and felt a little surge of righteous glee when she swallowed it. There was a kind of primal satisfaction at the idea of consuming the heart of a beast she had killed, and for a moment she regretted that she hadn't been able to kill all the creatures she would be consuming over the next several weeks. It made her look forward even more to the upcoming hunt for the last two mutagens.

After she swallowed the potion she stood reading over Triss' notes again while Geralt and Vesemir stood by observing to make sure she didn't respond poorly to the potion. Triss had written a small note detailing the ultimate effect of each mutagen so she would know what kind of changes to expect. This one was meant to impart wisdom and was also a precursor to the subsequent mutagens, intended to deepen the effects from them. Triss had written in light script, "Weird dreams?" next to the "wisdom" bit. Nothing seemed to be happening. She worried for a moment that the potion might not be working. She was looking into the empty bottle in consternation when she suddenly felt herself falling as though the floor had just opened up beneath her.

She found herself floating amidst the chaos with the Old Gods again, only this time there were four of them and they had the definite forms of sleeping dragons. One of them wore skin that undulated and changed, taking on exquisite and confoundingly infinite patterns; one was glowing red and blazed small snorts of fire as it slept; one was oddly bound in chains; and the fourth was so utterly still and quiet as to be nearly absent. There were three other shapes of dragons flying in a steady circle around a swirling vortex, as though to counterbalance the sucking pull of the vortex beneath them.

This is where it ends, Gwynrhena. This is where it begins. She heard their voices echoing through her mind and watched, horror-stricken, as a rift opened and a multitude of robed humanoid figures burst in from another plane, disrupting the steady circling of the three active sentinels. She watched, helpless, as powerful magic put the three flying dragons to sleep and they grew still and unmoving where the spell had struck them.

There were deafening claps of thunder and chaotic bursts of lightning striking everywhere around her as the swirling vortex began to grow in power now that its counterbalance had been nullified. The invaders raged and she could sense they had not been expecting what they had ultimately found in this place. In the midst of the chaos their rage began to transform them into something horrifying and even more mindlessly dangerous.

Beside her, she felt one of the four slumbering behemoths awaken and call out in a mute roar that suppressed the dissonant thundering noise around her, driving everything into sudden, ringing silence. It gave her ears a brief reprieve from the chaotic noise around her, but his companions were not awakened. He attempted to drive out the invaders on his own, but was overcome as their raging power began to corrupt him.

She watched transfixed as his immense form mutated into something monstrous, but oh so familiar to her, just before he burst through the veil back into the world the invaders had entered from, a retinue of humanoid monsters trailing after him. The deafening roar of the chaos around her returned abruptly the second he departed.

The remaining six slumbering dragons remained as still as death as pandemonium continued to erupt around them. She felt the bedrock of the universe shaking and falling in on itself as the chaos whirled faster and faster, sucking everything into itself. A bone-shaking roar began to build from the center of the nexus and she reflexively ducked her head and watched as three distinct, immense orbs of pulsating light were drawn to the center and crashed together, merging into one bright, blinding radiance for a brief second before the momentum of their collision forced them back apart again to hover, barely touching and spinning in circles above the vast, churning nexus.

It grew suddenly very peaceful in the chaos. The roaring wind and thunder subsided. The three giant orbs seemed to be drifting serenely in a steady orbit above the roiling nexus, as though they were three dancers around a Midsummer tree, undulating softly as they wove their ribbons together.

Six dragons slept, for now, but three of them still spun in unstirring slumber around the nexus, their dreams keeping time with the orbs of the three worlds that spun beneath them.

When she opened her eyes she saw three concerned faces hovering above her, one of them with a distinctly more slobbery countenance than the other two. Geralt spoke first, his voice relieved and betraying his deeper emotions despite his even tone.

"Solona... can you hear me? Are you okay?"

She nodded and sat up, raising one hand to her temple. "I feel fine... just a headache... but the things I saw..." she shook her head softly, her loose white curls drifting idly around her face. Lusa lay down with his head in her lap, licking her hands softly. She looked down and indulgently scratched his ears.

She sat staring at Lusa's black, furry head for a moment, recalling everything she had seen. She wondered if the vision was directly related to her, or if it had more to do with the origin of the creature she had imbibed. Either way it had been a revelation. It was the first really concrete understanding she had of the dire need for her and Geralt to fulfill the prophecy.

"I saw the Conjunction. I saw the beginning of the Blights. I saw it all..." she said, still mesmerized. She looked up at Geralt and then at Vesemir. "What Triss told me was true... the Old Gods were what kept the worlds in balance. The magisters destroyed that balance when they knocked them out. There is still some semblance of stability, but it is fragile as long as they sleep."

Geralt nodded and said, "Well, best make sure we're ready then."

He stood from where he was crouching next to her and reached his strong hand out to her. She grasped it in her own and stood up, displacing the affectionate canine. Lusa stood up to obediently follow his master. She gave Geralt's hand a solid squeeze in gratitude. They turned and walked together up the corridor and out of the lab.

"So are you ready for some training?" he asked as they were walking.

"Definitely," she responded. "I need to work on my towel form." She elbowed him softly, eliciting a subtle grunt from him.

"I deserved that," he said and she laughed in response.

Next Chapter: In which sore spots get poked.