Thick, freezing mud sucked at Eyesight's bare ankles, pulling at her heels with every desperate stride as if the soaked earth itself had grown starving hands to drag her under.
Sheets of black autumn rain lashed sideways through the dead branches of the forest, striking the sixteen-year-old girl's cheeks like thousands of tiny iron needles. Her lungs burned as though she had swallowed hot coals, her torn nightdress clung like wet lead to her shivering knees, and behind her back, the night sky above her hometown was bleeding a sickly, terrifying orange.
Dozens of pitch-soaked torches were tearing through the tall wheat fields at the edge of the woods.
Carried on the howling wind came the frantic, bloodthirsty baying of hunting hounds mixed with the roaring shouts of the townsfolk—men and women who, less than three days ago, had smiled at her across wooden counters and bought fresh loaves of bread from the exact same street bakery she visited every morning.
They're right behind me, the thought echoed inside Eyesight's skull, her heart hammering so violently against her ribs that she felt her chest might split open. If I stop running, they'll tie me to a post and burn me alive.
Half-blinded by the rain pouring into her eyes and the wet strands of pale pink hair plastered across her forehead, her right foot caught underneath a gnarled, rotting oak root hidden in the mire.
With a sharp cry that was swallowed instantly by a crack of thunder, she pitched forward and slammed face-first into a shallow puddle of muddy water.
Her teeth clicked hard against her lower lip on impact, flooding her tongue with the warm, coppery taste of fresh blood. Yet the sharp sting of her split lip was nothing compared to the suffocating terror clawing at her back.
Scrambling on her bruised hands and knees through the wet leaves, Eyesight dragged herself behind the wide, moss-covered trunk of an ancient oak tree that grew flat against the dead-end wall of a steep rock ravine.
There was nowhere left to run.
Pulling her bleeding knees tight against her chest in the dark, she squeezed her eyes shut, her mind flashing back to a life that felt as though it had belonged to someone else entirely. She remembered the crackle of her family's hearth fire on cold evenings, the rich smell of mutton stew bubbling in the kitchen pot, and the warm, rough hands of her father lifting her onto his shoulders during the harvest festival.
She had been her parents' pride and joy.
And then, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, her magic had woken up.
It hadn't even been a dangerous power. She hadn't set a barn on fire or summoned monsters; she had simply looked at a stray bird on the windowsill and suddenly seen the street below through another person's eyes. Yet a nosy neighbor had seen the strange glow in her pupils through the open shutter, and within an hour, the local parish priest of the Church of Hermes had been pounding on their front door with templars at his back.
No questions. No trial. No mercy.
Snap. Crunch.
Heavy, iron-shod boots crushed the wet undergrowth ten paces from her tree.
Orange torchlight spilled around the wide bark of the oak, chasing away the merciful shadows and illuminating the mud-splattered circle of villagers who had cornered her against the rock wall.
Eyesight looked up, her small frame trembling uncontrollably as the rain washed the blood from her chin.
What broke her heart into a million pieces wasn't the sight of the rusty scythes or the woodcutting axes gripped in her neighbors' fists.
It was the tall, broad-shouldered man standing at the very front of the pack, holding his blazing pine torch high above his head as he looked down at her crouched in the mud with a disgust so deep and corrosive it seemed to poison the rain between them.
It was her father.
— "Father... please, it's me!" — Eyesight sobbed, her voice cracking into a child's desperate plea as she reached one mud-streaked, trembling hand out toward the man who had taught her how to walk. — "Don't let them hurt me, Father, I'm still your little girl!"
The man standing in the torchlight didn't flinch. There wasn't a single flicker of grief, hesitation, or fatherly warmth left behind his eyes—only the hollow, fanatical hatred that the Church's sermons had poured into his skull.
— "I have no daughter," — her father spat, raising a heavy, three-pronged iron pitchfork in both hands until the sharp steel tines pointed straight at the center of her chest. — "My child died the day the devil crawled into her blood. You are a monster wearing her face."
Stepping forward into the puddle, he lunged with all his weight, driving the cold iron prongs straight down toward her heart.
Eyesight couldn't move. She squeezed her eyelids shut, bracing her chest for the tearing agony of the iron—
— "Eyesight..."
A strange, muffled voice echoed from somewhere far beyond the rain and the barking dogs.
— "Eyesight, wake up! You're dreaming!"
Just as the cold points of the pitchfork brushed the skin over her breastbone, a pair of warm hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard, shattering the forest and the torchlight like thin black glass.
— "EYESIGHT!"
— "Gasp—!"
Eyesight's eyes flew wide open.
Sucking a violent, ragged breath of freezing air into her lungs, the sixteen-year-old witch bolted halfway upright on her damp straw mat, her hands flying instinctively to the front of her wool tunic to check for blood.
There were no iron prongs in her chest. There was no rain, no mud, and no barking hounds.
Around her rose the rough, damp limestone walls of the sleeping alcove deep inside the Impassable Mountain Range, lit only by a dying tallow stub resting on a rock shelf.
Kneeling right beside her straw pallet, with both hands resting firmly on Eyesight's trembling shoulders, was a tall, slender seventeen-year-old girl with neat blonde hair and calm, intelligent eyes.
It was Library.
— "Breathe, Eyesight. You're in the cave. You were having that nightmare again," — Library murmured in a soft, steady voice, reaching down with one hand to unstop a leather canteen and holding the spout toward her friend's dry lips. — "Here, drink a little water."
Just the dream... the same cursed dream, Eyesight told herself, wiping the icy sweat off her forehead with the back of her sleeve before taking the canteen with both shaking hands.
She gulped down two swallows of the freezing snowmelt, letting the sharp cold slide down her throat until her racing pulse finally slowed from a gallop to a dull thud.
Looking up in gratitude at the blonde girl beside her, Eyesight felt her nerves steady.
Out of all the younger witches in the camp, Library possessed the most grounded, rational head on her shoulders—a trait shaped by her upbringing as the daughter of a modest cloth merchant in the bustling streets of Eagle City. Unlike the combat witches whose powers broke stone or summoned wind, Library had awakened a quiet, scholar's gift: by touching one sheet of written parchment with her left hand and a blank sheet with her right, she could instantly transfer every word, number, or map line onto the blank page without a single error.
For nearly a year, she had used that gift in secret behind her father's counting house to duplicate store inventories and shipping ledgers in seconds. Then a corrupt guild inspector had grown suspicious of how a small merchant house was producing flawless duplicate books overnight without hiring scribes, the Church's informers had come sniffing around the back alley, and Library had been forced to flee her home with nothing except the coat on her back—until Scroll found her shivering in an abandoned warehouse and brought her into the Association.
Handing the canteen back, Eyesight paused as her ears caught an unusual sound vibrating through the rock floor beneath their mats.
Out in the main corridor beyond their sleeping niche, dozens of hurried footsteps were shuffling across the gravel, accompanied by the low, harsh bark of Catherine's voice echoing from the distant hall.
— "Thank you, Library," — Eyesight whispered, swinging her legs off the straw mat and reaching for her worn leather boots. — "Why is everyone moving around out there? The sun hasn't even come up yet."
Library's calm brow creased into a tight, worried frown as she pulled her heavy wool cloak around her shoulders and tied the neck string.
— "Mentor Cara finally woke up from her fever about an hour ago," — Library said quietly, glancing toward the dark doorway of their alcove. — "Five minutes ago, Catherine and Windseeker came running through the quarters banging on the rock walls. Cara ordered every single witch in the Association to report to the main hall immediately."
— "Cara is awake already?" — Eyesight blinked in surprise as she laced her boots. — "Did Herb say she was well enough to stand?"
— "I don't know, yet the mood out in the hallway is awful," — Library admitted, her voice dropping lower. — "All the older combat witches have their weapons strapped on, and nobody is talking."
Before Eyesight could stand up from her mat, light, hesitant footsteps pattered across the gravel just outside their curtain, and a tiny figure peeked timidly around the corner of the rock wall.
Standing at the entrance of the alcove, clasping her small, frost-reddened hands nervously in front of her chest, was Sun.
At barely thirteen years old, with soft golden curls and wide, doe-like eyes that held not a single drop of malice despite the cruelty of the world outside, Sun was by far the youngest and shyest girl in their sleeping quarter. Even someone as perpetually sour and short-tempered as Catherine usually softened her voice by half an octave whenever little Sun walked past.
Like Eyesight and Library, Sun didn't have a drop of combat power in her small body. Her magic was oddly specific: whenever she held a small object between her fingers, she could make it spin on its own central axis at a blistering, drill-like speed.
In a normal town, it would have been a cute trick for spinning tops. Up here in the freezing misery of the Impassable Mountain Range, however, where dry tinder was scarce and matches didn't exist, Sun had become the camp's little fire-starter. By spinning a pointed stick of hard pine against a groove of dry wood and old straw at two thousand revolutions a minute, she could spark a smoking coal in three seconds flat—saving Red Pepper from wasting her heat magic on cooking fires so she could save her energy for demonic beasts.
Right now, however, the thirteen-year-old looked ready to burst into tears.
— "Eyesight... Library... are you two dressed yet?" — Sun whispered, her small voice trembling like a leaf in the draft. — "Catherine just yelled at the girls in the next room. She said Mentor Cara is already standing on the black rock, and anyone who is late will be punished..."
Looking at the terrified little girl shivering in the doorway, Eyesight pushed the remnants of her own nightmare aside, forced a warm, reassuring smile onto her face, and walked quickly over to place a gentle hand on Sun's narrow shoulder.
— "We're ready right now, Sun. Don't be scared," — Eyesight said softly, smoothing down a stray golden curl on the girl's head. — "Hold onto my hand and Library's sleeve. Whatever Mentor Cara wants to talk about, the three of us will stay right next to each other, alright?"
Sun nodded rapidly, her small fingers latching onto Eyesight's hand on one side and Library's wool cloak on the other.
Walking side by side—the tall, composed blonde scholar on the left, the sharp-eyed pink-haired scout on the right, and the tiny thirteen-year-old tucked safely between them—the three friends stepped out of their alcove and followed the dark stone passage toward the heart of the cavern.
The main hall of the underground refuge felt less like a camp that morning and more like a courtroom waiting for a hanging.
High overhead, jagged limestone stalactites hung down from the vaulted shadow of the ceiling like the upper fangs of a stone beast. Down on the gravel floor, fifty-seven witches stood huddled together around the dying orange embers of the central fire pit, the air thick with the smell of wet wool, woodsmoke, boiled willow bark, and cold, unwashed fear.
As Eyesight, Library, and Sun slipped quietly into the middle of the crowd next to Selena and Cherry, nobody even whispered a greeting.
Every pair of eyes in the hall was locked on the natural platform of dark basalt rock rising five feet above the floor at the back of the cavern.
Standing at the very edge of that stone ledge was Cara.
Even from twenty paces away, it was obvious how badly the collision against the cavern wall four nights ago had wrecked the founder's body. Thick strips of linen bandaging—already stained with a fresh, rusty blotch of dark red over her left eyebrow—wrapped half of her pale forehead and temple. Her left arm was held stiffly against her ribs beneath her dark cloak, and in the dead silence of the hall, everyone could hear the harsh, wet rattle of her lungs every time she drew a breath.
Yet none of that physical weakness made her look any less dangerous.
If anything, the blood-stained bandages and the sunken, fever-bright glare of her golden-green eyes made Cara look like a wounded viper coiled on a rock, ready to spit venom into the face of the first creature that twitched. Down at the base of the stone platform, Wendy and Scroll stood with pale, tight-lipped faces, while Violetta and Fringe stood three paces to the right with their travel packs already strapped over their shoulders.
Slowly, Cara raised her right hand into the dim air.
The few faint coughs and nervous shuffles in the crowd died instantly.
— "Sisters," — Cara spoke, her hoarse, grating voice scraping across the stone walls like a rusted saw blade. — "Winter has closed its jaws around this gorge, and I have called you out of your beds before dawn because our survival hangs by a single thread."
She paused, letting her bloodshot gaze sweep slowly from left to right across the sea of gaunt, shivering faces.
— "Four nights ago, a treacherous coward whom we called our sister brought a mortal monster into our home," — Cara hissed, her fingers curling into a claw as the mention of William sent an involuntary shudder through half the hall. — "Because of that treacherous ambush, our sacred God's Stone was destroyed, three defectors ran back to lick the boots of the nobility, and I lay unconscious for four full days. Four crucial days of travel that we could not afford to lose!"
In the front row, several of the younger girls shrank back as if the words were physical whips.
— "Worse still, while I was unable to lead you, our food sacks have dropped to the bottom," — Cara continued, her voice cold, rehearsed, and dripping with false gravity as she set the stage for her purge. — "We can no longer remain in this cave wait-hole while the Fourth Prince's hounds know our location, yet if all fifty-seven of us march north through the deep snow of the Hidden Forest together on our remaining grain, every single woman in this hall will starve to death before we reach the gates of the Holy Mountain."
Cara adjusted the heavy bear-fur pelt draped over her bandaged shoulders and looked down like a judge on a high bench.
— "Therefore, to guarantee that our Association survives to reach our promised land, I have made an irrevocable decision," — Cara declared. — "At sunrise, when we abandon this cavern, a group will be separated from our main column."
A sharp ripple of shock ran through the huddled witches. Several of the girls looked around at one another in confusion, wondering if Cara was talking about sending out another hunting team.
Then Cara reached into her sleeve, pulled out the crumpled scrap of parchment she had written in the dark an hour earlier, and delivered the blow:
— "Eight of you will not march north with us," — Cara said flatly. — "When the sun rises, the eight names on this paper will pack their bags and march south, down the mountain, to Border Town."
What?!
Gasps broke out across the center of the hall as Cara held the paper up to the torchlight and read the list aloud with the cold cadence of an executioner reading a death warrant at the gallows:
— "Mystery Moon. Cherry. Ellen. Eyesight. Soraya Zoen. Library. Feather. And Selena."
Every name echoed off the high stalactites and dropped onto its owner's shoulders like a block of solid ice.
For two heartbeats, the cavern was dead silent.
Then, all at once, the terror dam burst.
Two paces to Eyesight's left, Mystery Moon—a painfully timid girl with dark violet-blue hair and mismatched eyes—went completely white, her hands dropping limp at her sides as her breath locked in catatonic shock. Right beside her, Ellen covered her face with both hands and broke into loud, ragged sobs, while quiet Soraya Zoen stumbled two steps backward until her spine hit a stalagmite.
— "No! Mentor Cara, please, no!" — Selena's voice tore out of her throat in a raw cry of primal despair as tears cut clean tracks down her soot-smudged cheeks. Stepping out of the line toward the black rock platform, she held out her trembling hands. — "Don't send us away from our sisters! Please! If the problem is the barley sacks, we can eat half rations! We can eat quarter rations! I'll dig under the rocks for mice and chewing roots, I swear I won't be a burden!"
Beside Eyesight, tall, composed Library suddenly lost all the strength in her legs, dropping hard onto her knees on the sharp gravel as little Sun threw both arms around Library's neck and wailed at the top of her lungs.
— "You can't throw us out into that blizzard!" — sixteen-year-old Cherry screamed, her rough street voice cracking with outrage and sheer terror as she pointed a shaking finger toward the pitch-black exit tunnel. — "It's a slaughterhouse out there on the lower slopes! And even if the demonic beasts don't tear us to pieces in the snow, what happens when we reach that human town?! Four nights ago, you told us yourself that Nightingale was brainwashed and that the Fourth Prince is a trap! If we walk down there, the mortals won't give us beds—they'll tie us in chains and sell us to the Church's pyres!"
Up front, frail seventeen-year-old Feather dropped onto her knees in front of the rock ledge, clasping her frost-bitten hands together as if praying to a statue.
— "Mentor, I beg you, let us stay with the camp!" — Feather wept, her whole thin frame shaking violently as the early tremors of her approaching eighteenth birthday gnawed at her bones. — "My Day of Awakening is only days away! If you send me out into the snow without the sisters around me, I'll die in the drifts!"
Around the crying eight, the forty-nine remaining witches stood frozen in agonizing conflict, biting their lips and looking away as their hearts tore between pity for their younger sisters and terror of Cara's wrath.
Standing straight between kneeling Library and sobbing Sun, Eyesight didn't cry out, and she didn't fall to her knees.
Instead, as her fingers clamped down on Library's cold hand so tightly her knuckles turned white, Eyesight stared up at Cara's bandaged face, and the brutal, unadorned truth hit her like a slap across the mouth.
Look at the eight names she just called, Eyesight thought, her stomach turning to lead as her sharp eyes scanned the girls crying around her. Me—five-meter shared sight. Library—copying paper. Cherry—changing the taste of soup. Soraya—painting pictures. Selena—reading feelings. Ellen—five-meter ground vibrations. Mystery Moon—magnetic accidents. And Feather—a girl who can only make herself lighter and is about to suffer the Awakening in a week.
Not a single combat witch was on that list.
Not even thirteen-year-old Sun had been called—solely because Sun's spinning twigs were still needed to light the main column's campfires in the snow!
She isn't sending a scouting party to Border Town, Eyesight realized, a wave of cold disgust washing over her terror. She's throwing the weak pieces off the sled so the fighters have enough food to run away from the Prince! To Cara, we aren't sisters at all—we're just extra mouths eating her barley!
Up on the basalt platform, watching the eight girls weep and accuse her in front of the whole camp while her cracked ribs throbbed with every breath, the last shred of Cara's patience snapped.
Stepping to the very lip of the rock ledge, the Snake Witch leaned her tall frame forward, the black vipers around her boots rearing up and hissing into the firelight as she bellowed at the top of her lungs:
— "SILENCE!!"
The raw, unhinged roar slammed against the cavern walls and echoed off the stalactites with such terrifying force that the pleas died in the girls' throats instantly. Even little Sun buried her face against Library's shoulder to muffle her sobs.
Cara stood panting for three seconds, pressing one hand hard against the bandages under her ribs before forcing her twisted features back into the cold, imperious mask of the all-knowing Mentor.
— "Listen to yourselves, whining like a litter of blind puppies!" — Cara spat down at the eight girls with withering contempt. — "Do you really think I am some heartless monster throwing my own daughters out into the snow to be eaten by wolves?! Have I not bled for five years to keep every single one of you alive?!"
Without giving Cherry or Selena a chance to answer, Cara raised her right hand and pointed toward the two combat witches standing quietly at the side of the platform with their heavy winter packs.
— "You will not be walking down that mountain alone!" — Cara announced, her voice shifting smoothly into a grand, manipulative cadence designed to crush their resistance. — "Violetta and Fringe—two of the strongest, most experienced vanguard fighters in this entire Association—are marching with you!"
Dozens of heads in the crowd snapped toward the side wall.
Standing wrapped in her thick white wolf-fur mantle, Violetta kept her arms crossed and her purple eyes fixed straight ahead like an iron statue, while beside her, Fringe offered the frightened younger girls a tiny, measured nod of reassurance.
— "Violetta and Fringe will guard your front and your rear through the Hidden Forest until your boots reach the safe transition road at the very foot of the mountain!" — Cara proclaimed, raising her bandaged chin toward the stalactites as if she were handing down a divine blessing. — "Do not dare look upon this order as a banishment! I am entrusting the eight of you with a sacred vanguard mission! While the main body secures the gate of the Holy Mountain in the north, you will test the truth of that human town in the south—and once Violetta and Fringe see you safely down the ridge, the main column will wait for our two warriors to return!"
Crossing her arms carefully over her bound chest, Cara looked down with eyes that permitted zero argument.
— "This mission is just as vital to the future of our family as the search for the Holy Mountain itself," — Cara lied without a single flicker of shame. — "Now dry your foolish tears, take your ration bags from Scroll, and prepare to march. The sun is rising."
It was a masterstroke of cruel psychological theater.
By dressing up a cold-blooded abandonment as a "sacred mission" and throwing Violetta's undeniable combat strength in front of them as a shield, Cara stripped the eight girls of any excuse to rebel without looking like cowards in front of the rest of the camp.
Deep down in the pit of their stomachs, Eyesight, Library, and Cherry still knew the ugly truth: they were being discarded into the blizzard like unwanted ballast.
Yet faced with the crushing weight of Cara's absolute authority and the silent wall of forty-nine sisters who didn't dare speak up for them, the fire of their protest turned into cold, bitter ashes.
One by one, with trembling shoulders and tear-streaked faces, the eight condemned witches lowered their heads toward the gravel floor, accepting the sentence that had just torn their lives in two.
Out at the far end of the mountain gorge, the pitch-black night finally paled into a bleak, freezing gray dawn—bringing with it the hour of farewell.