There's a stranglehold on the utter uselessness of just standing there, passive voyeurs, to Ciri spinning out as Geralt tries to reach her. The promise of the fight started in defense of her, blossoming into a blade that slams into Geralt's chest, and despite her noninvolvement with a lot of this—as Geralt so nicely painted on one of the walls of her head earlier—this is wrong.

This is so wrong. Ciri is wrong. This is not the girl who was so doting and pleased dragging him out to dance with her under fairy twinkle lights in NocWich; not the laconic and level, but slowly opening woman who teaches Jo sword work between her jobs, willing to let her succeed on her merit or slam into walls if that's what she's choosing instead. This is just. Wrong. Not Ciri.

But Geralt doesn't fight her; he only continues to try to get through to her. Even as she stabbed him and started screaming, the whole place suddenly ringing with it. The walls, the floor, her goddamn teeth.