Ahem.
Roland Wimbledon cleared his throat once, straightening the front of his dark wool tunic in a desperate attempt to hide the cold sweat drying on his collar.
Being told that an invisible assassin had spent the entire week standing three feet behind him during his top-secret planning sessions with Arthur and William was enough to rattle anyone's nerves. Still, as a former project director, Cheng Yan knew that showing weakness in a negotiation was fatal.
— "Where my two advisors come from, and how they acquired their knowledge, is a matter of my personal administration," — Roland said, forcing his voice into a steady, authoritative pitch as he leaned his back against the closed oak door. — "You only need to know that they come from a distant land beyond the reach of the Church of Hermes, and that they stand with me. More importantly... I believe we were discussing the fact that you broke into my private bedchamber at night and threw a dagger an inch from my face. You didn't risk sneaking into a royal castle just to compliment my friends and critique our dining hall lectures, did you?"
Sitting on the edge of his four-poster bed, the cloaked figure tilted her head slightly.
— "Already tired of talking about your mysterious scholars, Your Highness?" — Nightingale asked, the light, musical teasing returning to her velvety voice.
Slowly, she raised both gloved hands toward the sides of her neck.
— "Come now, do not look so stiff over there by the door," — she added softly, her fingers grasping the heavy dark fabric of her hood. — "Look at me. I promise I am not some hideous monster with horns, and I won't bite your head off, Your Highness."
With a single, fluid motion, Nightingale pulled the heavy hood back off her head.
The moment the dark cloth slipped onto her shoulders, a cascade of thick, wavy golden hair tumbled free, catching the warm amber glow of the nightstand candle like spun gold.
Even as exhausted and tense as he was, Roland felt his breath catch in his throat for a split second.
She was far more than merely "not hideous"; under the soft, flickering candlelight, her beauty was genuinely breathtaking.
Unlike the rounded, youthful innocence of seventeen-year-old Anna or the childlike delicacy of little Nana Pine, Nightingale possessed the sharp, striking elegance of a young woman in her prime. A high, straight nose gave her profile an air of natural noble pride, while her skin was as pale and smooth as porcelain. Most captivating of all were her eyes: large, deep blue, and shimmering with a sharp, piercing intelligence that looked as though it could read a man's soul at a glance.
Even in the dim light of a single tallow candle, the flawless symmetry of her features made her look less like a wandering fugitive and more like a highborn lady who had traded her silk ballgown for a killer's cloak.
Caught off guard by the stark contrast between the lethal phantom he had pictured in his head and the stunning young woman sitting on his mattress, Roland felt the defensive tension in his shoulders drop by half.
Almost unconsciously, his feet moved on their own. Stepping away from the oak door, he walked slowly across the wool rug until he stopped just two paces in front of the bed.
The logical engineer inside his skull reminded him that a venomous viper was still lethal no matter how beautiful its scales were—yet some deeper human instinct told him that this woman no longer held a single drop of killing intent toward him. The bedroom had stopped being an assassination site; it had become a negotiation table.
— "Now that we can finally look each other in the eye like civilized people," — Roland said, folding his arms loosely across his chest as he looked down at her, — "perhaps you can tell me the real reason you decided to reveal yourself tonight?"
Nightingale didn't answer right away. Instead, she tilted her head back, looking straight up into Roland's gray eyes from two feet away.
— "It is strange... you really do not fear me at all, do you?" — Nightingale murmured, her voice dropping to a soft, almost wistful whisper tinged with both wonder and old sadness. — "Just like those two companions of yours, Arthur and William... the three of you react to us in a way that defies everything I know about this world."
She raised her right hand, pulling off her dark leather glove finger by finger to reveal slender, pale fingers marked only by the faint calluses of a dagger hilt.
— "My sisters and I have spent our entire lives running through the mud like hunted animals," — she continued quietly. — "Whether it is a starving peasant in a village, a wealthy lord in a manor, or a priest in a chapel, the moment a normal human realizes what we are, the look in their eyes is always the exact same. It is a mixture of pure, primal terror and irrational hatred—the look people give a venomous spider they want to crush under their boot. Yet when I look into your eyes, or when I watched Arthur and William teaching the girls today... that ugly look simply isn't there."
Before Roland could anticipate her movement, Nightingale leaned forward from the edge of the bed and raised her bare, pale hand.
With surprising gentleness, her cool fingertips brushed against the side of Roland's stunned face, resting lightly against his cheek. Her skin was cold from the night air, yet the touch sent a sudden jolt of static electricity straight down Roland's spine.
— "In your eyes, Your Highness, and in the eyes of your two friends, I see no disgust and no fear," — Nightingale whispered, her blue eyes shining inches from his. — "I only see curiosity, calculation, and respect. You have no idea how... refreshing that feels."
Thump-thump.
Roland coughed twice into his fist, feeling a sudden, embarrassing flush of heat climb up his neck and ears. Taking half a step backward, he gently turned his head out of reach of her cool fingers, breaking the unexpectedly intimate tension before his brain completely lost the thread of the conversation.
Hold on a second, lady!, Cheng Yan shouted inside his own head, trying to calm his erratic pulse. Five minutes ago you were an invisible ninja pinning my ear to the doorframe with a silver blade, and now you're caressing my cheek like a lonely heroine in a romance movie?! My heart cannot handle this kind of emotional whiplash at midnight!
Thankfully, noticing the young prince's visible awkwardness, Nightingale pulled her hand back smoothly and slipped her leather glove back on, her expression shifting right back into the cool, composed mask of an Association operative.
— "Forgive me. Let us get down to business, then," — Nightingale said, sitting up straight and cutting cleanly through the quiet air. — "I revealed myself tonight to make an official request—or, if you prefer, a polite demand. I am here to take Anna and little Nana away with me tonight."
— "No."
The single word exploded out of Roland's lungs before his conscious brain even had time to filter the political danger of saying it to an assassin's face.
His gray eyes widened, and every trace of embarrassment vanished instantly, replaced by the fierce, possessive reflex of an engineer who had just been told someone was confiscating his only power generator!
Without Anna's high-temperature fire to roast limestone clinker and melt low-sulfur steel, his entire industrial timeline—the cement wall, the flintlock rifles, and the high-pressure steam engine he and Arthur had just started drafting—would grind to a dead halt tomorrow morning! More than that, over the past three weeks of working side by side in the soot and the dining hall, he had grown genuinely protective of both girls.
Realizing a second later that flatly shouting "No" at a killer who could walk through walls might provoke her into drawing another dagger, Roland quickly took a breath and shifted into his most persuasive diplomatic tone:
— "Listen to me logically for a moment, Nightingale," — Roland said, raising both hands palms-out. — "Anna and Nana have a clean, safe, and productive life here. I guarantee you on my royal bloodline that as long as I draw breath inside this castle, no guard, no priest, and no nobleman will ever lay a finger on them. Be realistic: where in the Four Kingdoms could you possibly take two young girls in late autumn that is safer than behind my twelve-foot concrete walls, protected by William's new army and Arthur's logistics?"
— "I am taking them north, to the main sanctuary of the Witch Cooperation Association," — Nightingale replied calmly, not reaching for her blade despite his blunt refusal.
Instead, she looked at him with the patient, slightly stubborn expression of an older sister explaining a simple truth to a naive outsider:
— "I admit that you treat them remarkably well here, Your Highness, and your castle is warm," — she continued. — "However, no matter how kind a human lord may be, a witch's true home is among her own kind. At our sanctuary, Anna and Nana will live surrounded by dozens of their sisters. They will grow up completely free from the shadow of human prejudice; there will be no Church informers, no gallows, and most importantly... they will never have to hide what they are or pretend to be ordinary humans ever again."
Roland frowned deeply, his modern analytical skepticism overrides his caution as he looked at her.
— "You speak of this 'Witch Cooperation Association' as if you own a fortified city with granaries and stone walls," — Roland countered sharply. — "Do not try to bluff me, Nightingale. You and your sisters don't even have a permanent roof over your heads. Just two weeks ago, while Arthur and I were reviewing the regional patrol logs with Minister Barov, I read the reports from the autumn woodsmen. My scouts found two of your abandoned campsites in the eastern timberlands—nothing but ash pits, lean-to shelters made of pine branches, and footprints heading straight toward the freezing northern ridges. And north of Border Town lies nothing but the Impassable Mountain Range—an unexplored, frozen wasteland where not even veteran hunters dare to go in winter! Marching two teenage girls into those peaks right now is a death sentence!"
Nightingale didn't flinch at the intelligence leak; a small, faint smile touched her lips.
— "Your geographical assessment is quite accurate, Your Highness," — she admitted evenly. — "The Witch Cooperation Association is indeed marching north to establish our new home deep within the Impassable Mountain Range. Far away from human kingdoms, far away from the Church, and completely safe."
— "Safe?! Are you out of your mind?! That is complete logistical suicide!" — Roland burst out, unable to hold back the corporate project manager inside him when confronted with a plan that had zero supply chain behind it.
He stepped closer to the bed, ticking off the fatal flaws on his fingers:
— "How exactly do a few dozen fugitive girls plan to survive in the middle of an unmapped mountain range when the worst winter in Graycastle hits next month?!" — Roland demanded, staring at her in disbelief. — "Think with logic instead of blind hope for five seconds! Do you have deep wells of fresh water that won't freeze solid in sub-zero blizzards? Do you have tons of dry grain and salted meat stockpiled to feed fifty mouths for four months under six feet of snow? Do you have brick houses with proper thermal insulation and coal stoves so you don't die of hypothermia in your sleep?"
Roland threw his hands up:
— "And here is the cherry on top of the madness: the Months of Demons are about to begin!" — he pressed on. — "Every single demonic wolf, armor-plated boar, and winged Hybrid that attacks Border Town comes pouring down from those exact northern mountains! You aren't marching away from danger—you are walking straight into the spawning ground of the monsters! What are you going to eat up there when the blizzards bury the trails?!"
Mid-sentence, Roland stopped dead.
His gray eyes widened as a sudden, horrifying realization connected Barov's old reports with the gold-stitched emblem on Nightingale's chest.
"Only upon reaching the Sacred Mountain shall witches find eternal peace and salvation from the devil's curse..."
— "Wait a second... don't tell me," — Roland whispered, raising a hand to rub his face in sheer exasperation as he stared at the blonde assassin. — "You and all your sisters in the Association are marching blind into the freezing Impassable Mountain Range in the middle of winter... because you are looking for that mythical Sacred Mountain from the bedtime legends?!"
Nightingale lowered her eyelashes slightly, a mysterious, guarded smile curving her lips in the candlelight.
— "I am afraid I cannot discuss the internal objectives of our Association with an outsider, Your Highness," — she said softly, though her silence on the specifics confirmed Roland's guess a hundred percent.
Seeing that she really was part of a group chasing a religious fairy tale into a frozen wasteland, Roland crossed his arms tightly over his chest, his jaw setting like stone.
— "If that is your grand plan, then I will never agree to let you drag Anna and Nana out of this castle," — Roland stated flatly, adopting the unyielding stance of a protector. — "There are less than two months left before the snow locks the mountain passes. Even with your invisibility magic and your daggers, you cannot feed a camp of girls on snow and pine needles."
Then, driven by a sudden flash of strategic inspiration—the exact same manpower shortage he and Arthur had discussed three days ago—Roland leaned forward and threw an offer on the table that no feudal ruler in history had ever made:
— "In fact, Nightingale, instead of marching your sisters to freeze to death chasing a myth in the mountains... why don't you bring the entire Witch Cooperation Association here to Border Town?!" — Roland proposed, his eyes shining with genuine urgency. — "Bring every single witch you have inside my walls to spend the winter under my protection! We have warm brick quarters being built, we have coal from the North Slope, and thanks to Arthur's trade deals, our granaries are filling up with tons of wheat and meat! Once the brutal winter ends and the snow melts in spring, when everyone is still alive and healthy, you can go look for your mountain all you want!"
For the first time since she had appeared in his room, Nightingale's cool, composed mask shattered completely.
Her blue eyes flew wide open, her lips parting in utter, speechless shock as she stared up at the young prince as though he had just suggested they drink the ocean dry.
— "Bring... the entire Witch Cooperation Association here?!" — Nightingale repeated, her voice cracking slightly as she blinked rapidly. — "Bring dozens of witches inside a human town ruled by a royal prince of Graycastle?!"
She stared into his face for five long seconds, searching for any sign of a trap—only to find nothing but earnest, practical calculation in his gray eyes.
— "You... you really are a completely bizarre and fascinating man, Prince Roland," — Nightingale breathed out, a mixture of disbelief and genuine admiration warming her voice.
For a brief moment, the temptation was visible on her face as she weighed the undeniable survival advantages of warm beds, real food, and solid concrete walls against the freezing horror of the northern peaks.
Almost immediately, however, four hundred years of conditioning forged by betrayals, lynch mobs, and burning stakes pulled her back to harsh reality. Slowly, sadly, Nightingale shook her head, her golden curls swaying across her dark cloak.
— "Your generosity is almost impossible to believe, Your Highness, and I know that you, Arthur, and William hold no malice toward us," — Nightingale said softly. — "However, you are only three men. You cannot guarantee the sanity of the two thousand commoners living outside this castle. Your miners and farmers have been poisoned by the Church since the day they were born; to them, we are filthy monsters. Hiding Anna and Nana inside your courtyard is one thing, because the town thinks Anna is dead. But if thirty or forty witches suddenly march through your gates in broad daylight, the entire town will erupt into blind panic. Within three days, the local priests will stir up a mob with pitchforks and torches, and spies will carry the news straight to the Inquisition. I cannot walk my sisters into that fire."
Roland opened his mouth immediately, ready to argue that with William and Iron Axe's disciplined First Army holding flintlock muskets, no peasant mob would dare touch a hair on a witch's head—and once the townsfolk saw the witches helping them survive the Demonic Beasts on the wall, public opinion would change through sheer material benefit, just as Arthur had planned!
Before Roland could utter the first syllable of that argument, however, Nightingale raised a gloved hand and cut him off.
The playful warmth and the wistful curiosity vanished completely from her face, replaced by a dark, crushing solemnity that made the air in the bedroom feel ten pounds heavier.
— "Furthermore, Your Highness, even if the Church and the townsfolk did not exist... there is another reason," — Nightingale said, her voice dropping to a low, somber tone that made the fine hairs on Roland's forearms stand straight up. — "A biological and far more lethal reason why I must take Anna away from this castle before the winter ends, and why we have no choice but to risk freezing to death in search of the Sacred Mountain."
Roland frowned, sensing a genuine, bone-deep terror behind the assassin's eyes.
— "What reason?" — Roland asked quietly.
— "Because in less than four months, right after the Months of Demons end... Anna will turn eighteen years old," — Nightingale whispered. — "She will reach adulthood."
Roland blinked once, his modern mind failing to grasp why a simple birthday sounded like a funeral bell in her mouth.
— "Eighteen? Adulthood?" — Roland repeated in confusion. — "And what does turning eighteen have to do with leaving my castle? In Graycastle, eighteen is simply the legal coming-of-age ceremony."
Nightingale looked at the young prince for a long, quiet moment.
Seeing through her sharp intuition that Roland's confusion was one hundred percent genuine—that despite all his miraculous knowledge of atoms, steam, and chemistry, he somehow lacked the most basic, tragic knowledge of how witches died in this world—she let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Shifting back slightly on the mattress, Nightingale pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, looking suddenly much younger and more fragile under the flickering candlelight as she spoke in the quiet voice of a survivor recounting the end of the world:
— "For a normal human girl, turning eighteen is a celebration of life, Your Highness," — Nightingale whispered. — "For a witch... the eighteenth birthday, combined with the anniversary of the day her magic first awakened, is the ultimate threshold of death. The sooner a girl awakens her power before the age of eighteen, the stronger her magic grows—and the more inescapable the agony becomes when she finally crosses that line. Typically, girls who awaken at sixteen or seventeen have a mild transition. But Anna awakened her fire years ago as a young child... which means the pressure built up inside her body has already passed the point of no return."
Nightingale raised her deep blue eyes, fixing them directly on Roland's pale face as the single candle flame cast long, trembling shadows across the stone walls.
The silence in the bedroom seemed to suck all the oxygen out of Roland's lungs before she spoke her final sentence:
— "Your Highness... a few weeks ago, your friend William joked in your study that the Church's stories about demonic corruption were just lies to scare peasants, comparing our bodies to a steam boiler with a blocked valve," — Nightingale said softly, her voice trembling by a fraction of an inch. — "William was half right about the pressure... but he has never seen what actually happens when that boiler reaches adulthood. Have you never wondered why the entire world, and every priest of the Church, truly believes with all their hearts that when a witch turns eighteen, she becomes the literal incarnation of the devil on earth?"