As night fell, the cold outside the cave became absolutely unbearable, forcing the witches who were busy on patrols and searching for scarce firewood to return to the camp, one after another.
The sound of dragging footsteps and chattering teeth echoed through the wide stone hall.
When the newcomers saw that Nightingale had returned safely from her search mission for the new witch, a wave of genuine relief swept through the camp. Witches with soot-stained faces and tired expressions approached her, touching her shoulders, offering weak smiles, and asking how she had survived the storm. However, Nightingale's smile didn't reach her eyes; seeing that several of those girls wore raw cloth bands tied firmly around their left arms — the grim sign of mourning for the twins had returned — she felt a crushing weight sink into her chest. Nightingale still casually answered some questions about the snow and the journey, but, consumed by urgency and the guilt of not having arrived sooner, she became increasingly silent, only holding Wendy's hand.
After the miserable dinner of diluted porridge and hard roots, Wendy clapped her hands, asking for silence, and dozens of witches gathered in a large semicircle around the main campfire.
It was then that Nightingale stood up.
The glow of the campfire illuminated her pale and determined face, and she began to tell her long and unbelievable story.
She spared no details. Nightingale spoke with an incandescent passion about how she had infiltrated Border Town under the cloak of the mist, expecting to find a disgusting tyrant; she told how she met the blue-eyed outsider, William, a Commander who crushed demonic beasts with his bare fists; she spoke of Advisor Arthur, the suit-wearing man of great intellect who could predict the future; she narrated Prince Roland's relationship with the local witches, revealing that Anna and little Nana walked freely through the corridors, not as slaves, but as respected, valued, and well-paid citizens.
Nightingale described the imposing cement wall that defied the monsters, the black powder that roared like thunder, and how they, together, resisted the dreaded attack of the hybrid beasts without losing a single man. And to prove she wasn't crazy, she pulled from her cloak a copy of the steam engine's blueprint drawing — an exchange with Roland —, exhibiting the geometric and complex lines for all to see, proving that a new era of protection was being born in the west.
Most of the witches present there, after fleeing their hometowns and joining the Cooperation Association, had lived a reclusive and grim life. For them, it was almost impossible to conceive of a life in the outside world that didn't involve chains, whips, or burning pyres. They listened attentively, their eyes wide with suspicion, interest, and fear.
But the climax of her story hit the cave like lightning.
When Nightingale raised her voice and swore on her own life that Anna had passed into Adulthood without suffering any pain, making it through the Day of Awakening unharmed and smiling just because she had exhausted her Magical Power working at the forges, the crowd suddenly erupted.
That was the peak of any girl's concern there.
The day of Adulthood was the scythe that hovered over their necks; it bothered and terrified witches throughout their brief lives. It was the fear of indescribable pain and certain death that led them to abandon any chance of a normal life. It was because of this atrocious fear that they marched to the lethal Impassable Mountain Range, losing everything they had just to search for the legendary and mythical Holy Mountain. If what Nightingale said was true — that there was a Lord willing to accept them, who would protect them, and who had proven that they no longer needed to suffer and die from the Devil's Bite —, wouldn't that have been infinitely more perfect, real, and attainable than the invisible Holy Mountain?
Reactions collided in a chaos of whispered voices and heated exclamations; the spark of hope crashed violently against the wall of trauma and distrust.
Young Twig jumped on her tiptoes, her eyes shone with an almost childlike excitement as she looked at her friend Sun, standing beside her. — "Did you hear that?! Real food! No persecution and... And no pain in Adulthood! It sounds like the paradise the old stories told about!"
Not far away, Violetta shook her head vigorously, hugging her own knees with defensive despair. — "No, no, no, that's impossible. She must be mistaken, or she's too naive to realize it. No noble would do all that for free. Never!"
Catherine, leaning against a stalagmite, crossed her arms and muttered with venomous bitterness, feeling offended by the fantasy. — "Nightingale can only be mocking us. Did she go out into the blizzard and lose her mind?? Does she think we are idiots to march back into a Prince's territory and work as 'dancers'?"
Leaf, on the other hand, looked deeply into the campfire flames, lost in silent thoughts. She was absolutely enchanted by the vision of a place where she could use her magic and walk freely under the sun, but soon the harsh reality froze her heart, and she grew sad, dismissing the idea quickly. 'Nobles have honeyed tongues and silver blades', she thought; the noble of Border Town must have tricked her with hallucinogenic herbs or false promises, just as the lords of other cities did with our sisters.
Near the provisions, Bow and Enigma talked to each other in feverish whispers.
— "Do you think it's true, Enigma?" — Bow muttered, wringing her hands. — "A heated castle, and clothes that don't smell like mold and sweat... How wonderful would that be?"
Stone and Beatrice, two of the Association's fighters, exchanged dumbfounded looks. — "Did you hear the part about the man killing a hybrid bear with his fists? And stone walls made with liquids?" — Stone said, incredulous. — "That's simply impossible! Even for a single witch to defeat demonic beasts is hard work, how could normal people manage to defeat them barehanded?"
Feather, who was only two weeks away from her own Awakening and trembled every night with the fear of imminent death, grabbed her own chest, panting, the excitement completely taking over her at the prospect of no longer needing to feel the agony of being devoured.
But Windseeker narrowed her eyes into dangerous slits, distrust clouding her judgment. She muttered to the girls around her: — "This must be a mistake, clearly a trap. These outsiders she talks so much about, or the prince himself, must have drugged Nightingale! Or even threatened to kill her if she didn't lure us out of the cave!"
Only Diana Argus remained in absolute and thoughtful silence. She didn't argue, just leaned forward, her eyes fixed and deeply interested in the precise lines of the "steam engine" blueprint paper that Nightingale held.
That applied geometry and mathematics didn't seem to be lies told by lords; they were proof of a possible real intelligence acting in that place.
The chaos of the discussions increased, bordering on mass hysteria, until a frightening, hissing sound cut through the freezing air.
In that tense moment, the crowd of witches suddenly fell silent. A path began to open in the middle of the mass of women; none said a word. They only stepped back with a bow full of respect and awe.
A tall witch, her head full of exotic green hair that seemed to move on its own, and with half of her pale body covered in dark, realistic snake tattoos, walked slowly until she stopped right in front of Nightingale. The campfire flames seemed to flicker before her; crawling around her feet on the stone floor, small magical snakes hissed.
Upon seeing her, Nightingale swallowed hard, bowed in a formal reverence, and greeted her respectfully: — "Respected mentor, hello."
The witch who emerged from the shadows was the absolute founder of the Witch Cooperation Association, Cara, the Snake Witch. No one dared to disrespect her; when speaking to her, under penalty of punishment, all witches had to call her mentor.
— "I heard the absurd little story you just told us," — Cara spoke, her voice hoarse, hollow, and sharp as broken glass, her eyes glued to Nightingale. — "Are you trying to tell all of us, your sisters, that everything we are doing is wrong, that we have no right to seek the Holy Mountain?"
— "No, Mentor, please listen! These are not fantasy stories, I give you my word!" — Nightingale raised her hands, trying to appease the leader. — "What I mean is that we suffer unnecessarily! There is a man who—"
— "ENOUGH!!!" — Nightingale was violently interrupted by Cara, who waved her hand impatiently, a black serpent whipping the air next to her wrist. — "I don't know what spells or cheap potions they threw at you when you went to that damn town, but they washed your weak mind to make you vomit these words in here. A noble prince who genuinely sympathizes with a witch?"
Cara let out a cold, cruel, and joyless laugh. — "It is practically as ridiculous and impossible as a man defeating demonic beasts with his bare hands!"
The Mentor turned sharply, her cloak swirling. With a cold and fanatical smile, she raised her arms in the air, addressing the dozens of frightened witches watching them, shouting at the top of her lungs:
— "Sisters! Have you gone blind?! Have you already forgotten how those mortals treated you throughout your entire lives?! How they burned your family members, violated your bodies, and hunted you like rabid animals?!"
Without even letting Nightingale open her mouth to protest or counter-argue, Cara continued to shout, her voice soaked in ancestral hatred:
— "Yes! That same group of filthy mortals! The group of incompetent and pathetic people who pretend to fight in the name of God, who are always pointing a sharp blade, a torch, or a bloody whip at our backs. If it weren't for the invention of that damn God's Stone of Retaliation, how do you think they, weak men without magic, could dare to step on us, superior witches?! Our innate ability doesn't come from the devil in their stories, but rather it is a gift and a proof given by the true god! The ones who should assume divine authority in the world shouldn't be them, the lying nobles, but us! The Holy Mountain recorded in the ancient books exists, and it is the residence of the gods waiting for us!"
What...? Nightingale widened her eyes. She blinked, stepping back, unable to believe the magnitude of the insanity and arrogance she heard.
Although the supreme leader of the Witch Cooperation Association had always been considered harsh, closed-off, and somewhat eccentric by the others, this bordered on megalomania.
Cara was deeply attached to the legend and the blind search for the Holy Mountain, with a passion and rigor that exceeded that of any ordinary person, but she had always been very far from demonstrating such dangerous madness.
And although Cara was not affectionate and accessible like Wendy, at least in past years, Nightingale thought she had always treated the survival and the pain of the sisters with sincerity.
But Nightingale never, in her worst nightmares, imagined that Cara could be so fanatical as to irrationally hate all ordinary people and plan a witch superiority over the mortal world. William and Arthur were really right.
Could it be that, during all these difficult years leading in the shadows, Cara had always repressed her hatred and anger against the world? The so-called "ban" imposed by her on getting involved in profane matters or attacking small towns... Could it all have been just a tactic to save magical power? Just so that the witches could, one day, after finding the Mountain, impose a resounding, bloody, and genocidal retaliation in the future against all mortals?
Nightingale thought to herself, her heart beating fast in her chest, terrified by the logical conclusion: Was this the true, dark reason why Cara forced us to hide in the worst possible conditions? It wasn't protection; it was the construction of an army of damaged fanatics.
— "We have found a solid and irrefutable clue to the hidden gate of the Holy Mountain beyond the western plains! It is exactly as described in our ancient books!" — Cara continued her sermon to the witches. — "There are only a few days left until the red moon appears in the night sky like a drop of fresh blood, rising toward the stone mountains, and we will finally, through our sacrifice, reach the other side!"
Suddenly, Cara stopped speaking to the crowd and turned aggressively to look directly at Nightingale.
The Mentor pointed a long, tattoo-covered finger at the ex-assassin's face.
— "You have been corrupted and deceived by filthy mortals, Nightingale. Since we were born, we have lived in a grand farce, surrounded by lies." — Cara proclaimed with a frightening fervor, and then uttered the words that broke Nightingale's heart irreparably: — "The suffering during the day of Adulthood is not a magic flaw! It is a sacred test from God! Only the strongest, the most obstinate, with indomitable talent and genuine power can overcome it and deserve the Holy Mountain! Those who die, it is because they failed the test."
Those words hit Nightingale like a punch to the stomach. Airy and Abby were not failures! They were deserving of a good life just like anyone else.
Cara opened her arms. — "As for the Church of Hermes," — she mocked sinisterly for the second time, — "They are just a group of stupid mortals who dare to borrow and act in the name of our God; sooner or later, we will ensure that they have to go to the hell they preach so much about."
The silence in the cave was deadly.
— "And you... Lost child, now it is time for you to see the truth again." — Cara paused, lowering her arm and adopting a dangerously sweet and magnanimous tone of voice. — "If you simply forget right now those ridiculous and impossible stories you just told about these strangers, I promise I can forgive your ignorance and your juvenile mistakes. As a loyal member of the Witch Cooperation Association, you will receive our help again and, together with us, you will leave on our march in search of the Holy Mountain, so that we may obtain eternal power and freedom."
Nightingale's heart froze completely in her chest, but it wasn't from cold; it was from pure disillusionment.
*Was the pain just a test in her sick view? That grotesque and inhuman suffering during the day of Awakening, the hundreds of sisters who were not physically and magically strong enough to resist having their flesh torn from the inside out—to Mentor Cara, were they not worth it? Were they just failures, losers who didn't deserve paradise?*
That disgusting argument was, in its essence of cruelty, exactly the same sick argument that the Church itself used to kill the weak! And the worst part wasn't Cara's speech; the worst part, which broke Nightingale, was looking around.
While some younger sisters cried, dozens of witches around Cara, corrupted by years of isolation indoctrination, unexpectedly showed an expression of fanatical resonance with the Mentor's speech.
Not even Wendy, the most compassionate soul in the cave, appeared to openly express her disapproval at the cruel words about the dead, keeping her head down, trapped by fear and respect.
Nightingale suddenly felt terribly sick and tired of that cult.
In a frightening blink of an eye, the founder of the Witch Cooperation Association, the acclaimed mentor of all witches and leader of her former home, had transformed into an unrecognizable and dangerous stranger.
With a firm posture, her back straight and the cold assassin's mask returning to cover her features, Nightingale didn't cower. She looked directly into Cara's eyes and shook her head in denial.
— "You've gone mad with hatred, Cara. So listen closely! I will be out here, and I am perfectly willing to take with me and guide all the sisters who want to leave this damp cave towards true safety and a warm shelter." — Nightingale declared firmly, her voice echoing like a verdict. — "But if you, or anyone else, decides to stay blind and follow this illusion of the Mountain... I only wish you good 'luck' dying in the snow."
Nightingale turned her back to Cara and the central campfire, ready to march toward the cold exit of the cave to fetch her partner, who was waiting patiently outside.
However, just as Nightingale took her second firm step toward the ledge, she suddenly felt an electrical tingling, incredibly light, almost imperceptible, prick the lower part of her left leg, right above her leather boot.
Her instinct screamed.
Looking down, her peripheral vision caught the fleeting reflection of the firelight on scales. She saw a tiny snake, incredibly thin, shiny, and striped in a lethal blue and black, retract its fangs after stealthily biting her calf.
It was the Snake Witch's dreaded manifestation magic. Cara never played fair; her summons were silent, slender, undetectable in the dark, and capable of using a terrifying variety of paralyzing arcane neurotoxins.
The betrayal was faster than thought.
The toxin's paralysis spread explosively, shooting up from her leg through her entire nervous system in less than two seconds, cutting off her brain synapses. Nightingale's knees failed immediately, and she collapsed heavily face down onto the cave's rough stone floor.
The witch parted her lips and desperately tried to take a deep breath. She tried with all her might to open her mouth to scream for William, to give the signal he had asked for, but her vocal cords were absolutely frozen by the venom, and no sound escaped her throat.
With her vision spinning violently and Cara's voice laughing in the back of her mind, Nightingale fell helplessly into the deep darkness of unconsciousness.
The fanatical mentor had won the debate in the worst possible way.