Yennefer rolled up her sleeves and pressed both palms flat against Seb's chest, directly over the darkest cluster of veins near his heart, and violet light began to gather beneath her fingers, sinking slowly into his skin.
"This will not feel pleasant," she said, not looking up, her voice already sharpening with concentration. "I need you as still as you possibly can manage. Fight the instinct to pull away, it will only draw this out worse, and longer."
"Wouldn't dream of moving," Seb said, forcing something like a grin, though it faltered the instant the light truly sank into him.
His back arched sharply off the table, a strangled sound tearing loose from his throat before he could swallow it down, both hands clenching into fists hard enough that his knuckles went bone-white.
"Hold him," Yennefer snapped, not looking away from her work, and Vesemir and Eskel moved at once, bracing his shoulders firmly down against the wood.
The dark veins along his chest and neck began to weep, not blood, not at first, something darker and thicker, welling up along each branching line as her magic forced it toward the surface. Within moments it had turned unmistakably red, streaking down his collarbone, soaking dark into the cloth beneath him.
"Yen.." Geralt started forward half a step.
"It's supposed to do that," Yennefer bit out through gritted teeth, sweat already beading along her hairline, her whole body trembling faintly with the strain of holding the working steady. "The curse resists being drawn out... I'm forcing it to the surface faster than it wants to go. Do not distract me right now, Geralt. I mean that."
He fell silent, but didn't retreat, his eyes fixed on Seb's straining face.
Lambert stood near the head of the table, arms crossed so tightly it looked like the only thing keeping him upright, watching Seb's jaw clench and release against sounds he was visibly refusing to let escape. "This is like watching someone go through the Trial of the Grasses all over again," he said, low, mostly to Eskel beside him. "I hate this part.."
"Wasn't much fun the first time for him either, as I recall," Eskel said grimly, keeping his weight braced hard against Seb's shoulder as another tremor rolled through him.
Ciri stood a few feet back, unable to make herself look away and equally unable to properly bear watching directly her eyes darting instead between Seb's clenched fist, the sweat breaking cold across his brow, anything that wasn't the sight of blood weeping steadily from beneath his skin.
"Is this normal?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper, directed at no one in particular. "Is this... is this how it's supposed to go?"
"I don't know," Vesemir admitted honestly, not looking away from Seb's shoulders under his grip. "I've never seen this particular curse before. But Yennefer knows what she's doing. Trust that much, if nothing else right now."
Hours passed...
'Stay with me,' Seb thought, teeth grinding hard enough to ache, the pain building into something vast and consuming, a roaring pressure behind his eyes that made the edges of the room start to blur and darken at the corners. 'Don't black out. Don't you dare black out. Not like this.' He fixed his gaze hard on the ceiling overhead, counting the grain of the old wood, anything at all to keep himself tethered to the room, to the sound of voices around him, even if he couldn't make himself turn his head.
"Almost," Yennefer gasped, her own voice fraying now at the edges, violet light flickering unsteadily beneath her palms. "Almost... just a little further, hold on."
"Yen, you're pushing yourself too hard," Geralt said, low, his hand finding her shoulder without thought, steadying her as she swayed slightly where she stood.
"I'm not trying to," Yennefer snapped, breathless, not sparing him so much as a glance. "I'm trying to save his life, Geralt, so unless you have a faster method in mind, let me work."
He didn't argue further. His hand stayed on her shoulder regardless, steady and unmoving. "You've got this," he said instead, quieter now, no trace of doubt in it at all. "I'll shut up now."
Something in her expression tightened at that, focusing harder, some fresh reserve of will dragged up from wherever she kept it. The light beneath her hands flared once, blinding, filling the whole hall with violet fire for the span of a single second.
And Seb's whole body went rigid, a final, raw sound tearing loose from his throat, before..
He went still.
Utterly, completely still, his chest rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths, blood streaked dark across his skin, but every ounce of tension gone from him all at once, as though someone had simply cut every string holding him taut.
"Seb?" Ciri's voice cracked as she rushed forward, hands hovering, too terrified to actually touch him. "Seb! is he... is he breathing? Somebody tell me he's breathing, right now!"
"Ciri." Vesemir said, his fingers already pressed firm against Seb's throat. "Calm yourself, girl. His heartbeat's steady. Strong, even, stronger than I expected honestly. He's unconscious, that's all. His body's simply had more than enough."
"Unconscious," Ciri repeated, like the word itself needed testing before she could trust it. "You're certain."
"I'm certain," Vesemir said, gentler now.
Yennefer swayed hard on her feet, and only Geralt's arm catching her fully kept her from going down entirely, her legs nearly buckling as the last threads of violet light guttered out from her fingers, leaving her pale, trembling, drenched through with sweat.
"Yen." Geralt's voice dropped low, careful now. "Is it done? Talk to me."
She let her head rest briefly against his shoulder, eyes shut, breathing hard and ragged, before forcing herself upright again, though she still leaned heavily into his side.
"We'll know soon enough," she said, hoarse, utterly spent, "whether my method actually worked or not. I've drawn as much of it to the surface as I safely could. Pushing further right now would kill him faster than the curse itself would."
"So now we wait," Eskel said.
"Now we wait.." Yennefer confirmed, closing her eyes again.
They carried him up together Geralt and Eskel taking most of the weight between them, careful of his shoulder, Vesemir clearing the way ahead, Lambert trailing behind with a lamp and laid him down gently in his own bed, someone drawing the blanket up over him while Yennefer, still leaning on Geralt's arm, watched from the doorway with exhausted satisfaction.
"He'll sleep through the night, most likely," she said, voice rough. "Maybe longer. Let him. His body needs it more than any of us can give him right now."
One by one, they filed out, Lambert pausing at the door to look back, something unusually soft crossing his face before he caught himself and simply nodded once, wordless, and left. Eskel followed. Yennefer allowed Geralt to walk her out, murmuring something low and tired to him that made his jaw tighten with concern, though he kept whatever he felt mostly to himself.
Ciri stayed.
She sat on the edge of the bed long after the others had gone, the room quiet except for the low crackle of the fire and Seb's slow, even breathing. After a while, she reached down and retrieved his steel sword from where it had been propped against the wall, and laid it carefully on the mattress beside him, within easy reach of his hand, the way he always kept it.
"We still have so much left to do," she said quietly, to him, though he couldn't hear her. "You said so yourself. Loose ends.. Philippa. Triss. Whatever's waiting for us in Nilfgaard." Her fingers found his, resting gently over his knuckles. "And I need you there for it. All of it. I can't do this alone, Seb. I don't want to do this alone."
In the doorway, unseen, Geralt lingered a moment longer than he meant to, listening and then, quietly, he turned and walked away, leaving her to it.
Vesemir found her there sometime later, still sitting at Seb's bedside, and settled into the chair near the door rather than intruding further.
"He's tougher than he looks, you know," Vesemir said, after a while, "Surprised the lot of us more than once, over the years. Did you know he survived a double dose of the Grasses, at five years old? Younger than any boy's body should have been able to take even a single dose, let alone two." He shook his head slightly at the memory. "We nearly lost him three times that first night alone. He came back from all three."
Ciri looked over at him, something in her chest loosening just slightly at the words. "He never told me that, I thought he only did one."
"Wouldn't have," Vesemir said. "Not his way, bringing up things like that unprompted. But I watched it happen myself, we all did, and I've watched a great many boys go through that Trial who didn't come back at all." He met her eyes steadily. "Whatever this curse is, whatever it's trying to do to him, it's nothing compared to what his body already proved it could survive, once, when he was barely more than a child and had no business surviving anything at all."
Ciri managed something close to a real breath for the first time since the ritual had ended, her hand still resting over Seb's. "Thank you, Uncle Vesemir."
"Get some rest yourself, Child." he said, rising slowly. "He'll still be here in the morning. I'd wager good coin on it."
/-\
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