With the death of her mother, Ciri was now the only remaining heir to Cintra and thus Calanthe took special care to raise her granddaughter. Despite Calanthe's attempts to keep Ciri shielded from learning about being a Child of Surprise and that she was destined to be a witcher since birth, Ciri's nanny told the young girl all about a white-haired witcher, and that he'd one day come for her to be taken away to be trained as one as well. When Calanthe found out she was furious but by then the seeds had been sown and Ciri began to firmly believe that was her destiny.

Then, 6 years almost to the day when Duny's curse was lifted, Geralt returned to Cintra but Calanthe, not wishing to lose her only remaining descendant, hid Ciri amongst a group of boys and had them playing around in the moat outside the castle when Geralt dropped in, who erroneously believed Pavetta had a son and wondered which one "he" was in the group. Despite this, he refused to take any child with him and left without even learning the true identity of Pavetta's child.

Shortly after, Calanthe arranged an engagement between Ciri and Windhalm of Attre, a now 20 year old who once vied for Pavetta's hand 7 years prior. However, Calanthe had a change in heart and called off the engagement years later before setting up another one, this time to Kistrin, the sole prince of Verden. However, the now 10 year old Ciri wasn't fond of this idea or of Kistrin and, no sooner had she arrived in Verden in 1263 to meet her suitor and his family, did she escape with aid from some of the soldiers. This plan went awry though as the party got lost and ended up in the dreaded Brokilon region, a forest off-limits to anyone not friends with the dryads that lived there. While normally the dryads shot to kill on sight, Ciri wasn't noticed by them, though the rest of her party wasn't so lucky and were killed as they mistakenly crossed the border.

While she wandered alone deeper into the dangerous forest, she was spotted by a giant centipede and almost met her death there when her screams were heard by Geralt and Braenn as they were incidentally nearby. After they killed the giant centipede though, Ciri tried to take off but immediately stopped when Braenn nearly hit her with an arrow. Despite this, the young princess refused to answer them and went as far as stating she'd have both of them beheaded before eventually joining them in their trek to Duén Canell, all the while telling Geralt how she didn't want a husband and threatening to bite Geralt to get him to answer her questions before the witcher threatened to whip her with his belt, making her behave politely the rest of the trip.

When the group arrived in Duén Canell, Ciri met the injured Freixenet, who also wished to beat the young princess for running away, before the governor revealed that Geralt was a witcher. Before Ciri could ask further on this, Braenn started to lead the princess away and Ciri realized they were preparing to make her a dryad and began to cry, though allowed herself to be led away.

A few hours later, Ciri sat with the dryad queen, Eithné, in her home. As Geralt arrived to discuss his reason for being sent to Brokilon, it eventually turned to Ciri, who was to be made a dryad. However, Ciri had already told Eithné something she hadn't revealed to Geralt yet: that she was destined to be a witcher and on learning who Geralt was, she realized she was destined to him. As Geralt made to leave rather than watch the young girl drink the Water of Brokilon that'd erase all her previous memories, Ciri begged him to stay and so he did for her sake. As he watched though, Ciri didn't show any of the normal signs after drinking the water and when the dryad queen asked the young girl who she wanted to go with, she revealed she still wished to go with Geralt, and thus the queen allowed the two to leave.

Geralt, now realizing Ciri was his Child of Surprise, traveled with her out of the forest, though when he took off east to Brugge Ciri appeared uncomfortable, remarking she felt they were going the wrong way, but followed anyways. A short time later it appeared she was correct: they ran into a group of King Ervyll's soldiers who were staging a merchant robbery as an act by the dryads. Not aware of the situation, Ciri suddenly remarked the dryads couldn't have done it as the tree was cut down, causing the men to try and kill her and Geralt, but Geralt held them off as he demanded she run. Instead of running far though, Ciri instead took an earlier story Geralt told to heart and climbed all the way up a tree. After the mercenaries were killed off by Geralt, nearby dryads, and the arrival of Mousesack, Ciri rejoined them, though the druid remarked Calanthe would probably be ready to spank the girl despite being sent by Calanthe to call off Ciri and Kistrin's engagement.

That night though, Geralt tried to take off once more without Ciri, who awoke after he rode off and yelled after him not to go and that she was his destiny. However, Geralt didn't turn around, leaving Mousesack to take her back to Cintra.

Shortly after Ciri traveled back to Skellige and at one point became extremely infatuated with one of the kingdom's famous warriors, Olaf Stigvason. However, this love was never meant to be as he was 35 years old, married, and with children older than Ciri. Distraught at this, Ciri decided she'd commit suicide by drowning and waited for favorable weather conditions to do so. This took too long though and during the wait, she was able to overcome her infatuation with the warrior.

Sometime later that season, she saw some of the boys, including a 15 year old Hjalmar an Craite, playing a game on the ice where they'd try to see how many rocks in a row they could jump over while skating. Hjalmar held the current record until Ciri, extremely agile and fast, beat it. Not to be outdone, Hjalmar tried to beat Ciri's record but smashed into the ice instead, breaking several bones in the process. Despite this, Hjalmar held no grudges against Ciri and the young girl regularly visited him while he healed. Being young and naïve, the two soon got "engaged" but as soon as Crach heard of this he promptly broke them up as Calanthe had other plans in the works to marry Ciri off and the young girl was dragged back home to Cintra by her grandmother.

Shortly after, Calanthe arranged Ciri's third official engagement: this time to the 9 year old Radovid V of Redania. Before the children ever had a chance to meet though, Radovid's father, Vizimir II, called off the engagement 6 months later.

With Geralt now accepting Ciri as his destiny, he took the young girl with him to Kaer Morhen, both to keep her in hiding and to train her to be a witcher. During the trip there Ciri was often plagued by nightmares of the knight with the winged helmet and Geralt had to reassure her everything was ok while holding her close until she fell asleep. When they finally arrived that autumn, the princess was initially afraid of the witchers but as soon as Geralt confirmed she was their destiny she began to see the small group as family and friends. That same night that they arrived though, the witchers quickly learned Ciri was no ordinary child. Thirsty, Ciri grabbed the nearest drink off the table, and before the witchers could stop her, she accidentally drank White Seagull which, combined with her Elder Blood, sent Ciri into a trance, speaking in another voice but incoherently.

A bit uneasy by this but not able to do anything else, the witchers, including Geralt, Vesemir, Lambert, Eskel, and Coën, began to train Ciri as a witcher. However, during one training episode she fell and once more went into an incomprehensible trance. It was only the third one, during one of her many nightmares, that she began to speak coherently, prophesying Coën's and Geralt's deaths. However like all the previous ones, Ciri never remembered them nor what she said so the witchers never told her about the episodes.

Regardless, the witchers needed help understanding what was happening to Ciri and so in 1265 they sent for the sorceress Triss Merigold, as Geralt didn't wish to involve Yennefer due to how they last split up. By December, Triss arrived in time to see a now 12 year old Ciri running the Trail, an obstacle course around the keep, but as Ciri made to jump the Gullet portion, she landed wrong and Triss ran over. While initially scared of the unknown woman, Ciri eventually let the sorceress heal her wound before the two made their way to the keep. As they did so, Triss witnessed firsthand one of Ciri's trances, this time predicting Triss' death, before Ciri woke up, believing she'd fallen asleep.

The next day, Triss went with Ciri to her room to inspect the young girl while fixing up her clothes, which had been haphazardly put together by Vesemir. As they talked, Ciri eventually confided she was scared of some of the training equipment before revealing something she'd been too embarrassed to bring up to the men: her menstruation had begun and, with no other women around, had no idea what was going on. With Triss' guidance, Ciri went and informed the witchers that she was "indisposed" and wouldn't be doing any physical training until it'd passed. Then, following Triss' earlier instructions, asked for Triss to be allowed to stay, before excusing herself. With that, Triss set forth a condition that the witchers stop feeding Ciri their special herbs and mushrooms as, while they helped with fitness and building muscle, they could have adverse effects on Ciri's womanly attributes as she grew up.

On Midwinter night, as Coën kept Ciri distracted with a game, Triss revealed Ciri was a Source, leading to initial denial as the witchers pointed out Ciri couldn't even do basic signs. However, Triss revealed that Sources were only transmitters of magic and therefore had no actual control over it: if they tried to force it nothing came out, but a strong emotion could unexpectedly flatten half a town. After the witchers revealed to Triss Ciri's past trances, Coën came through with Ciri and Triss gave the young girl White Seagull to send her into a trance once more, with the aim to find out what was speaking through her. Triss soon learned though that whatever was speaking through Ciri was extremely powerful, too powerful for Triss to control and stop it if it ever burst through Ciri. Naturally, Ciri didn't remember any of it and, despite not knowing enough Elder Speech to make sentences, as she was coming out of the trance she spoke in the tongue to say "something is ending." Knowing they needed help from a more experienced mage, Geralt finally relented in asking for Yennefer's help come spring, as they planned to take Ciri to Ellander's Temple of Melitele for schooling.

As the winter went on, Ciri continued her witcher training while also taking Elder Speech lessons from Triss, the latter of whom kept an eye on the girl every day and night to make sure whatever spoke through Ciri didn't come back, while also soothing her back to sleep when she woke up from nightmares. At one point the witchers even made a custom sword for Ciri to match her build.

One night in the middle of February 1266 though, Ciri slipped down and eavesdropped on a conversation Triss was having with the witchers in regards to their indifference to politics and went into detail about what happened during the Battle of Sodden Hill. As Ciri ran in, proclaiming she'd stand by Triss in fighting the Nilfgaardians as they'd killed her grandmother, Ciri revealed she thought she was training to kill, as she wanted to kill the winged helmet knight that haunted her dreams. Geralt sharply chastised her, informing her they were training her to save lives, not to kill out of fear and hatred, before sending her out of the room.

Distraught, Ciri ran out into the courtyard and stopped on the ledge of one of the walls where she inspected her sword. As Geralt and Triss approached, she cried out that nobody was going to take her sword from her, but as she moved, she lost her footing and almost fell to her death but Geralt caught her in the nick of time. After speaking comforting words to Ciri, the three agreed it was time to head south to the temple in Ellander.

After the chaos with the convoy, the three had a far more peaceful trip to the Temple of Melitele and once there, Geralt left Ciri in Nenneke's care while he wrote to Yennefer about the situation and asking for her help in teaching Ciri.

While Yennefer made her way to the temple, Ciri was treated like any other pupil, sleeping in a dormitory with the rest while learning and doing chores. When she could, she'd also write to Geralt to tell him about the goings-on.