Roland cleared his throat again, trying to hide his shock. — "Well... my friends are my business. They come from a place far enough away that the Church doesn't matter. But stop changing the subject. Saying you sneaked into my room and drove a dagger into my door just to thank me and analyze my friends isn't the whole truth, is it?"
— "Are you already tired of talking to me and of my observations?" asked Nightingale, the lightness returning to her tone. Slowly, she brought her hands to her hood. — "Look, don't be so tense. I don't look that horrible. I promise I won't scare you to death, Your Highness."
With a fluid motion, she pulled the fabric back.
She was much more than just "not that horrible." If Roland hadn't been exhausted, he would have lost his breath; one could simply and undeniably call her stunningly beautiful. When the heavy hood fell, her thick golden hair was instantly freed, cascading over the dark shoulders of the robe like a waterfall of pure gold threads. The faint candlelight reflected in her curls illuminated her with an almost divine aura, leaving him momentarily dizzy and fascinated. With her slightly aquiline nose, which gave her an air of stern nobility, and her large, bright eyes that seemed to read the soul, she was a vision. Instead of the round, slightly childish appearance of young Anna or little Nana, Nightingale's features revealed an incredibly mature, sharp, and dangerous charm. Under that faint, flickering light, he couldn't analyze every minute detail, but her perfectly proportioned facial features were more than enough proof of her singular beauty.
Hypnotized by the shattered expectation between the invisible monster and the woman before him, Roland felt the tension dissipate from his muscles. Step by step, almost unconsciously, he approached the edge of the bed where she rested. At the end of his short walk, without asking permission, they ended up sitting side by side, mere inches apart. He didn't do it because he felt uncontrollably attracted to her—he knew very well that a viper's beauty does not negate its venom, and getting involved would be too dangerous—he did it because he simply felt, on some instinctive level, that the other party no longer had any hostile intent toward him. The room had ceased to be a murder stage and had become a confessional.
— "Now that we've established decent eye contact," said Roland, crossing his arms. — "You can tell me the real reason you are here."
— "It's true, you really aren't afraid of me." Nightingale's voice sounded soft, surprised, and indeed, a little happy and melancholic at the same time. — "You, as well as the foreigners Arthur and William, react so strangely differently... My sisters and I have spent our lives seeing commoners, lords, and bishops who violently hate us because they have a primal dread of us. When I reveal myself, I can always see the raw fear, the sweaty and irrational disgust in their eyes. But in you... and in those two friends of yours..."
She couldn't contain herself, the emotion of not being feared overcoming her discipline. She reached out her pale, soft hand, delicately caressing the side of Roland's astonished face. Her touch was cold, but it carried a strange electrical charge.
— "Your Highness... in your eyes, I only see analytical curiosity. It is... refreshing."
Roland coughed twice, loudly, deeply embarrassed and with his cheeks heating up. He then pulled his head away from her unusual touch, breaking the intimacy of the moment. Hey, don't change the atmosphere so much! he screamed mentally. Five minutes ago you were still an assassin in the shadows threatening me with a silver blade, how could you change your style from 'cold assassin' to 'affectionate maiden' so suddenly? My heart can't take these emotional whiplashes!
Fortunately, noticing the prince's palpable discomfort, the woman quickly retracted her hand and contained her own emerging emotions, the mask of professional coldness slipping back into place.
— "I came here to make a demand disguised as a request, Your Highness," she said, cutting through the thick air. — "I want to take Anna and little Nana with me."
— "No!" — Roland widened his eyes in fright, the refusal exploding impulsively from his lungs before his rational mind could even filter the danger of denying a witch's request in his own room. He depended on Anna's fire and Nana's healing for the town's survival, and he had already grown attached to the girls. Realizing he had yelled, he grew terrified at the thought that if he rejected her completely with hostility, she would get angry and might kill him right then and there. So, he hastily amended in a diplomatic tone: — "Listen, Nightingale. They have a very good and productive life here. I guarantee that no one in this castle, under my orders, can or will hurt them. Besides, be realistic. Where do you want to take them in the middle of this season? There is no other place in this entire kingdom geographically and politically safer for them than here with me, along with William's protection and Arthur's planning."
— "I will take them to the Witch Cooperation Association's headquarters. After all, whether you want to admit it or not, their true home is there, among their own," despite Roland's harsh denial, Nightingale didn't get angry or draw her dagger again; instead, she continued talking to him in the same calm and patient tone of someone explaining the obvious to a stubborn child. — "There, the other members of the Cooperation Association are their sisters and companions in suffering. They will grow up without the shadow of prejudice; there will be no witch hunts, discrimination, or imminent persecution, and most importantly... they will finally no longer have to live disguised as ordinary people."
Roland frowned, skepticism overflowing from his words. — "You speak of this 'Association' as if it were an impregnable fortified stone castle! You and your witches don't even have a fixed, structured home. Barov told me that about a month ago, my guards patrolling the borders discovered one of your makeshift camps and hideouts in the middle of the eastern forest. They found the remains of campfires and clear footprints leading to the far north... But if you look at a map, you know very well that in the far north, beyond our border, there are only uncharted, endless mountains! It's a death sentence."
— "You are right in your topographical analysis," she said, keeping a faint, stubborn smile on her lips. — "The Witch Cooperation Association is marching to hide somewhere deep in the mountains. For us witches, far from civilization, it is absolutely safe there."
— "Safe? That is logistical suicide!" — Roland retorted, incredulous at her tactical naivety, his project manager mind short-circuiting. — "How would a handful of isolated people living in the mountains like savages during Graycastle's deadly winter be safe? Think logically! Do you have sources of clean water that won't freeze? Do you have enough food supplies for months under the snow? Are there thermally insulated shelters so you won't die of hypothermia? And the lethal cherry on top: the Months of the Demons are knocking on our door! Soon the entire vast northwest, especially the mountain ranges, will become a spawning and hunting ground for Demonic Beasts. In the end, what will you do..."
Here, Roland paused suddenly, his mouth open in shock. What was it again? What had the pale director Barov told him with that trembling voice about the pagan legends?
"...Only on the Holy Mountain can a witch obtain true peace. The profane purpose of the Witch Cooperation Association is to find the Holy Mountain together."
Damn it, don't tell me you're going to commit this madness, Roland thought, rubbing his face with his hands. He stared at her with wide eyes. — "Are you and your sisters deliberately marching into the Impassable Mountain Range in search of a legendary, folkloric Holy Mountain in the middle of winter?!"
— "I'm afraid I cannot give you an exact or direct answer regarding our goals," Nightingale smiled mysteriously, her eyes shining in the gloom, but her complacent silence and determined look made it perfectly clear to Roland that he had hit the sect's hidden target dead center.
— "If that is your crazy plan, I will never agree to let Anna and Nana go," Roland categorically and harshly rejected their plan, crossing his arms, assuming the position of an unyielding protector. — "There are only two damn months left before the entire outside world beyond the walls of this town is swallowed by snow and completely overrun with frenzied demonic beasts. Even if with your illusion magic you can avoid human hunters and Church soldiers on the mountain trails, you can't hide from the scent of wolves the size of cows. It's madness. But... how about this alternative idea. Instead of throwing yourselves to certain death searching for a myth of a Holy Mountain during the worst winter of the year, why don't all of you, the entire Association, come to this side of the walls? Come to Border Town to spend the winter under my protection. We have heating and we will soon have food. And when the brutal winter is finally over and the snow melts, you will be in one piece and can try to find your mountain again."
This time, Nightingale's quiet arrogance broke. It was her turn to be stunned, her mouth slightly open, staring at the prince as if he had just proposed they try to drink the ocean.
— "The entire Witch Cooperation Association should be transferred... here? Inside a human town controlled by royalty?" She blinked several times, processing the generous absurdity of the proposal. — "You... you truly are a fascinating and interesting person, Your Highness."
She thought intensely for a moment, the gears of her mind weighing the vital advantages of safe shelter against the constant threat of human betrayal. But in the end, the survival instinct conditioned by years of burnings and hangings spoke louder. She shook her head negatively, her blonde hair whipping through the dark air.
— "Your Highness, even if I believe that you, under the influence of those strange men, are not afraid of us witches, you simply cannot guarantee that sanity for the rest of your people. Your army is superstitious. The servants spit on the ground we walk on. I fear that as soon as dozens of witches march into your town and we are exposed to everyone's eyes, the villagers will panic and the Church's lackeys will soon come furiously knocking at your wooden door with torches and battering rams. I cannot put my sisters in that crossfire."
Roland opened his mouth, ready to argue that if he, Arthur, and William built the cement wall and proved that, as long as the witches helped them safely cross the Months of the Demons by slaughtering the monsters, the ignorant people would finally realize, through material benefit, that the witches were not demonic agents. However, before the first syllable of his modern logic could escape into the cold air of the room, he was rudely cut off.
— "Besides the obvious danger of the Church and human society, there is another urgent factor," Nightingale interrupted, her voice taking on a grave, dark, and ominous tone that made the hairs on Roland's arms stand up. Her gentle smile evaporated. — "There is a much more biological and lethal reason why I need and want to take the two girls away immediately: Anna will soon reach the limit. She will become an adult."
Roland furrowed his brows, not understanding the cosmic and terrifying weight she placed on such a common word. — "Adulthood? So what? It's just an age milestone."
— "Yes, adulthood," Nightingale let out an exhausted sigh, realizing that his ignorance wasn't feigned, but an absolute lack of knowledge of the arcane laws of that ruthless world. She seemed able to read the simple-minded doubt in Roland's mind through his gaze, so she settled on the bed and explained calmly, her tone resembling someone telling the story of the end of the world:
— "The arrival of adulthood, the Day of Awakening. It is the first, the most dangerous and terrible obstacle that all existing witches must overcome, or perish trying. It is the final test of magic against the human body; and the later they overcome this terrible obstacle, the more concentrated the power becomes, and the more unbearable the agony of enduring it. Generally, common people who awaken turn into witches much younger than Anna, which makes the pain more diluted. Anna is well past the limit."
Nightingale looked deeply into Roland's gray eyes, the faint candlelight casting deep shadows on her cheekbones. The silence that followed seemed to consume all the oxygen in the room before she uttered the sentence that would leave him sleepless.
— "Your Highness... The Church has always known how to spread frightening rumors about us. But deep down, in the bloody roots of our existence, do you know or at least suspect the real reason why, when we reach adulthood... the whole world and the priests consider us literally the physical incarnation of the devil's bite on earth?"