Chapter 6: THE DANCER'S GIFT
The training yard smelled of sweat and sawdust.
I'd found it three days after reaching Vizima—a modest establishment near the craftsmen's quarter where soldiers and guards came to stay sharp between duties. The yard master, a grizzled veteran named Henryk, had listened to my request with visible skepticism.
"You want to pay me to... hit you?"
"I want to practice dodging." I held up the coin purse I'd earned from two nights of tavern performances. "Wooden swords. Controlled swings. I'll pay double your usual rate."
Henryk's eyes narrowed. "You're not a fighter."
"No. But I might need to survive one."
Something in my tone must have convinced him. Or maybe the double rate did. Either way, an hour later I stood in the center of the yard while a young guardsman named Felix circled me with a practice blade.
"Whenever you're ready," I said.
Felix swung.
The instinct stirred—but not fully. My body shifted left, a partial dodge that still let the wooden blade graze my shoulder. It stung, but nothing like a real sword would.
"Again."
Another swing. Another partial dodge. The instinct was there, whispering of angles and trajectories, but it wasn't seizing me the way it had on the forest road.
The danger has to be real.
I thought about this while Felix reset his stance. On the road, I'd genuinely believed I was going to die. That belief had triggered something primal, a survival response that overrode conscious thought. Wooden swords and controlled sparring didn't carry the same weight.
"Can you swing harder?" I asked. "Less like practice, more like you mean it?"
Felix glanced at Henryk, who shrugged. "His coin."
The next swing came with real force behind it. I twisted away, the instinct responding more strongly, but still not fully. The blade caught my hip.
Getting closer.
We continued for thirty minutes. I adjusted my approach—asking Felix to vary his attacks, to strike without warning, to treat me like an actual threat. The instinct responded better to unpredictability, to genuine intention behind the blows.
But even at partial activation, the stamina drain was real.
At thirty-five minutes, my legs started to shake. At forty, they gave out entirely.
Felix's wooden sword cracked across my ribs.
I went down hard, all the air driven from my lungs. The yard spun above me. I heard Henryk's boots crossing the packed earth.
"Enough?" His weathered face appeared in my vision.
"Enough," I wheezed.
They helped me to a bench at the yard's edge. Felix brought water. I drank gratefully, wincing when the motion pulled at my bruised ribs.
So that's the limit. Or one of them.
The instinct demanded physical payment. Every dodge, every twist, every moment of enhanced awareness burned through stamina like a forge burned through coal. Against real danger, with full activation, I'd bought maybe two or three minutes on the forest road. Against practice attacks, with partial response, I'd managed forty minutes before collapse.
Either way, the result was the same: eventually, I'd run out of fuel, and then I'd get hit.
I can't dodge forever. The power is for escape, not extended combat.
Henryk settled on the bench beside me. "You've got good reflexes. Natural, like. But no technique, no foundation."
"I know."
"You want my advice? Learn to use a blade. Dodging's fine for staying alive, but eventually you need to hit back."
I nodded, not because I agreed—my hands were made for lute strings, not sword hilts—but because he wasn't wrong. Eventually, evasion wouldn't be enough.
Unless I combine it with something else.
The thought had been growing since the forest road. Bardic Resonance affected listeners' emotions. Evasion Instinct kept me alive in combat. What if I could use both at once? Dodge while singing, influence attackers while escaping their blows?
The possibilities made my head spin. Or maybe that was the exhaustion.
The tavern I'd chosen for lodging—the Dancing Mare, three streets from the market—had a copper tub that could be filled with heated water for an extra fee. I paid it gladly, groaning as I lowered myself into the heat.
My ribs throbbed. By tomorrow, I'd have a spectacular bruise—purple and yellow, the kind that made people wince in sympathy. I'd bought salve from an herbalist on the way back, and I applied it now with gentle fingers.
Worth it.
I knew more than I had this morning. The Evasion Instinct had rules:
One: It responded to genuine danger. Practice attacks triggered partial activation; lethal intent triggered full response.
Two: It drained stamina rapidly. Thirty to forty minutes of sustained use was the maximum, less under full activation.
Three: It failed when I was exhausted. Once the stamina ran out, I was as vulnerable as anyone else.
Four: It required mobility. I couldn't dodge while pinned, bound, or otherwise immobile.
These were limits, but they were useful limits. Known constraints I could plan around.
I sank deeper into the water, letting the heat soak into aching muscles, and thought about the future.
Two powers. Two sets of rules. Two tools in a world full of monsters, magic, and men with swords.
How do they combine?
Bardic Resonance required performance—singing, playing, directing emotional influence outward. Evasion Instinct required movement—dodging, weaving, responding to physical threats.
Could I do both simultaneously?
In theory, singing while moving was just performing while walking. Bards did it all the time in processions and parades. But singing while dodging lethal attacks, while the instinct seized control of my limbs, while my conscious mind split between music and survival...
I'd need to test it. Carefully. In conditions where failure wouldn't kill me.
The training yard again. But this time, I bring the lute.
I imagined Henryk's face when I asked to be attacked while playing music. The old soldier would think I'd lost my mind.
Maybe I had. But I'd also survived an ambush I had no right to survive, using abilities I had no right to possess. Sanity seemed like a poor measure of what was possible anymore.
The water had cooled to lukewarm. I climbed out, dried off, and dressed in clean clothes—my one set that wasn't road-stained or sweat-soaked. Time to test another theory.
The Dancing Mare's common room was half-full when I descended. Evening crowd, laborers and craftsmen finished with their day's work. Good audience for what I had in mind.
I approached the innkeeper—a thin woman named Berta who'd already heard me play twice—and secured a performance slot for the evening. Then I found a corner seat and waited, eating a bowl of mutton stew that was actually good enough to finish.
When my time came, I took the small stage with my lute and faced the crowd.
"Good evening, Vizima." I smiled, settling into the performer's mask that had become second nature over the past months. "Who wants to hear about love gone wrong?"
Scattered cheers. I launched into a comedic ballad about a man who accidentally married twin sisters, one of Julian's Academy favorites. The crowd laughed in the right places. My fingers found the familiar rhythms.
But I wasn't just playing. I was watching.
The Evasion Instinct had a passive component—enhanced awareness of threats, the ability to sense hostility before it manifested. I'd noticed it during the forest ambush, those crucial seconds of warning before the bandits struck.
Now, on stage, I reached for that awareness while I played.
The effort was like trying to flex two different muscles at once. My attention wanted to go one direction or the other—outward to the crowd with my music, or inward to that primal alert state. Doing both made my head ache.
But I could feel it working, if barely. The room resolved into sharper focus. I noticed the drunk in the corner whose body language was growing aggressive, the way two men near the bar were watching me with something other than appreciation, the subtle tension in a woman's shoulders that suggested concealed anger.
Threat assessment. While performing.
I finished the song and moved into another, maintaining that split awareness. By the third song, I had a headache building behind my eyes. By the fifth, I had to stop reaching for the instinct entirely—the strain was too much.
But I'd proven the concept. The powers could coexist, at least partially. With practice, with time, I could potentially use both simultaneously.
Not tonight, though. Tonight I need rest.
I finished my set to genuine applause—the crowd didn't know I'd been experimenting on them—and collected my tips. Enough coin to cover another night's lodging, another day's food. The traveling bard's arithmetic was becoming second nature.
Back in my room, I sat on the bed with my lute across my lap and stared at the wall.
Two powers. Both growing, both with rules I was still learning. And somewhere inside me, maybe, other abilities waiting to emerge.
The transmigration had made me Jaskier. But the powers were making me something else. Something new.
I need to be ready for Posada. Ready for Geralt, for Ciri, for everything that's coming.
Two years and two months remained by my count. Time enough to master what I had. Time enough to prepare.
I set the lute aside and lay back on the bed. Tomorrow, I'd request another performance slot. Test the combined awareness again, push a little harder.
Tonight, I let myself rest.
But my last thought before sleep took me was a question I couldn't answer: What will I become if I keep growing?
Morning light woke me to a city already in motion. Merchants hawking wares, carts rattling over cobblestones, the smell of bread baking somewhere nearby.
I dressed quickly, checked my coin purse—healthy enough—and made my plans for the day. Another session at the training yard, but different this time. I'd bring the lute. Ask Felix to attack while I played.
Henryk would definitely think I was insane.
But I needed to know if the combination worked under pressure. If I could dodge and influence simultaneously. If both tools could operate together when it mattered.
I shouldered my lute case and headed for the door.
The Vizima training yard awaited. And beyond it, whatever else this strange new life had in store.
Time to find out what I can really do.
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