The castle clock had not yet struck midnight, but the weather outside had already transformed into an inhospitable domain for any living being.
During the day, the temperature was bearable for anyone on the move, but in the dead of night, the biting wind of the Months of Demons plummeted temperatures to somewhere around -24°C to -30°C — a cold so brutal and absolute as the worst winters of ancient Europe, capable of freezing the moisture in the lungs of an untrained man.
William had finished his shift on the wall.
Although his recently invested points from the System had raised his endurance to a formidable level, shielding his bones against impacts that would crush steel, his body was still biologically vulnerable to prolonged exposure to that continuous and lethal early morning cold.
He was not immune to the hypothermia descending from the Impassable Mountain Range.
To avoid a freezing and unnecessary walk through the town, Nightingale had picked him up.
The Mist World distorted the reality around them into monochromatic tones. The journey to the castle's heated corridors took only a few minutes under her spell.
When Nightingale dispelled the magic in the second-floor corridor, the warm air and the smell of burning wood wrapped around them like an embrace.
However, Nightingale's expression was far from warm. She was distressed, her purple eyes carrying a shadow of deep and painful apprehension, and she hesitated for a moment, her hands crossed defensively over her chest.
— "William..." — she began, her voice sounding tense in the empty corridor. — "We need to go to Anna's room. I'm almost certain that midnight will mark her coming of age."
William nodded, knowing the weight of that information. What the anime called the 'Day of Awakening'.
— "I've seen this happen many times, William." — Nightingale's voice faltered slightly, memories of her fallen sisters haunting her mind. — "I've seen girls scream until they tore their throats; I've seen their bodies devour them from the inside out when the pain made them give up. It's a horrendous and traumatizing experience. If you don't want to see this... If you want to return to your chambers and avoid watching a possible death, I will completely understand."
William stopped walking.
He turned to the assassin, who was now trembling slightly with the ghost of trauma, and an incredibly tender smile appeared on his face.
He raised his right hand and, with extreme delicacy, gently pet the top of Nightingale's head, slightly ruffling her blonde hair.
— "I know you so well, but I really can't figure you out, Nightingale." — William said, his tone deep but full of affection. — "How can you be incredibly attractive and cute at the same time?"
Nightingale blinked in surprise, while her cheeks tinged slightly red, softening the coldness that surrounded her. And just as she was about to retort with her usual seriousness on the matter, words failed her for a brief second.
— "Don't worry about what's going to happen today." — William continued, lowering his hand to comfortably touch her shoulder. — "I have no reason not to go, and Anna is not going to die. She is perfectly prepared for this. I have no doubt she will pass this test peacefully, I guarantee it."
His unshakable confidence worked like a balm. Nightingale took a deep breath, regaining her composure, and the two walked together to the young witch's room.
Upon entering the room, William noticed that the environment had been sealed.
The heavy wooden windows were hermetically closed and covered by thick velvet curtains to keep the heat in. The only source of light came from two thick candles positioned at the foot of the bed and the flames of the fireplace, which cast dancing shadows across the stone walls.
The atmosphere wasn't that of a deathbed, like in the original work. Unlike the plot William knew—where Anna had fainted from exhaustion on the wall and spent the Day of Awakening in a deep sleep—the reality here was completely different. Thanks to Arthur's telekinetic intervention days ago, Anna hadn't exhausted her magical reserves in a suicidal manner. Furthermore, following Arthur's strict advice, she had been spending her magic daily and in a controlled way in the cement kilns, "emptying the water from the bucket" before it overflowed. Just as Nana did, without needing to spend magical power to the point of fainting.
The result? Anna was sitting on the bed, leaning against soft pillows, fully conscious, talking in a low voice with Prince Roland, who had pulled a chair up next to her. Nana was also there, sitting at the foot of the bed, holding Anna's hand in a silent gesture of support.
William and Nightingale approached.
— "How are the defenses outside, William?" — asked Roland, lifting his eyes from the girl to the newly arrived Commander.
— "Everything is calm at the moment." — William replied, leaning back against the wall. — "The common beasts haven't dared to come close since we used the gunpowder, and the few wounded we had are already fully recovered and back in position. The militia's morale is through the roof."
Roland nodded, seemingly relieved, but his attention soon returned entirely to the woman on the bed. The Prince's eyes carried a mixture of fascination and protective fear.
While the conversation flowed in the center of the room, in a dark and distant corner, sitting in a high-backed armchair with his legs elegantly crossed, was Arthur.
Physically, he was present, but mentally, he was miles away.
His eyes were focused on the void beyond the candle's flame. With Anna's survival guaranteed by his instructions, Arthur saw no reason to worry about the drama of the awakening; his mind was actively working on the geopolitical chessboard of the post-winter.
Longsong Stronghold will fall a few days after the Months of Demons end, Arthur calculated coldly. Duke Ryan and his coalition of incompetent nobles will try to stage a coup against the Prince as soon as the snow melts. Roland's victory is a mathematical certainty with gunpowder, but the real question is: who will manage the prize?
Arthur drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.
In the original narrative, Roland installs Petrov Hull as a puppet governor to appease the local nobility, but Petrov is weak, indecisive, and constantly blackmailed by his own family—a chronic inefficiency that will allow Timothy's knights to invade. Should I intervene? Ask Roland to appoint me Governor of Longsong Stronghold? With my Telekinesis and administrative control, I would transform that city into an industrial and military powerhouse in seven months. However, he weighed the cons. Taking over the Stronghold would demand my time and distance me from the epicenter of Roland's innovations and the witches' evolutions. Perhaps it's better to let history flow and keep Petrov as a useful doormat, while I remain in the shadows of the Border Town castle, accumulating influence and power.
The decision would require more analysis, but his train of thought was abruptly interrupted.
— "It's starting." — Nightingale's voice cut through the silence of the room, sharp and urgent.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop unnaturally.
Only Nightingale could see with her magical vision what was happening. Inside Anna's body, the flow of magic became agitated, but not in a destructive way. The mist of power that inhabited the girl began to condense, swirling rapidly and being pulled toward the center of her being, forming a small cyclone of light.
The dreaded Demonic Bite had arrived.
Roland continued holding Anna's hand delicately.
However, instead of the screams of agony and the contorting body that Nightingale was so tragically accustomed to witnessing in other witches and expected to occur, Anna only frowned slightly, letting out a low grunt and squeezing Roland's hand for a moment.
Because Anna had already exhausted her magical reserves in a controlled manner in the kilns over the days—emptying the water from the bucket, exactly as she had been instructed—the pressure of her expanding core met no resistance.
The "Bite" had no stagnant power to devour and transform into pain. Anna felt only a slight discomfort, a brief and fleeting twinge in her chest, which vanished as quickly as it appeared. She did not fight the magic; she welcomed it.
The anomalies, however, did not take long to manifest in the environment.
The flames of the two candles lighting the room began to flicker erratically, even though there was not the slightest breeze in the sealed room.
Slowly, the light emitted by the fire began to dim. The shadows on the walls elongated, seemingly being pulled toward the center of the room, swallowed by the candles themselves.
And then, before the perplexed eyes of Roland and Nana, the color of the fire changed.
The warm red-orange glow of the candles was instantly replaced by an emerald-green incandescence.
The entire room plunged into a luminosity that was exuberant and, at the same time, ghostly. The people around the bed looked at each other, their faces reflecting the green light, confusion and awe stamped on their expressions.
Anna let out a long, deep sigh, the tension in her shoulders melting into the bed.
The green flames of the candles stabilized, illuminating the room with a pure, cold, and hypnotic light.
Slowly, Anna opened her eyes. Her blue irises reflected the jade tone of the environment, demonstrating a serenity that contrasted with the violence of the Demonic Bite legend.
— "Anna..." — Roland whispered, his voice thick with relief and disbelief. — "Are you...?"
Anna didn't reply with words. She smiled at the Prince, a serene smile, and extended the open palm of her right hand toward him.
With a sound similar to a soft exhale, a mass of emerald-green fire erupted from the palm of the girl's hand. The fire danced and swirled silently over her skin, not emitting the smoke or the blistering, uncontrolled heat of her old flames. It was a perfectly controlled flame, dense and vibrant, condensed to its absolute physical limit.
Roland stared at the green fire, completely fascinated right before his eyes. He didn't know exactly why, but Anna's encouraging gaze told him it was safe.
Driven by an uncontrollable curiosity, the Prince hesitated for a brief moment, and then, with slow and cautious movements, he extended his own right hand and inserted his index finger directly into the center of the green blaze.
The room held its breath. William smiled, leaning against the wall, while Arthur, finally focused on the present, adjusted his posture to observe the thermodynamic condensation.
The excruciating pain and the sensation of burning flesh that Roland expected didn't come. Instead, the texture of the fire was astonishingly tactile; it was like having his fingers enveloped in warm, soft, and dense water, caressing his skin with a comforting heat that didn't destroy, only warmed.
The power of the Heart of Fire had been born, and Border Town now possessed a living forge.