The first sensation Cara experienced was not sight or hearing, but a tearing, sharp, incandescent pain that seemed to crack her skull in half. It was as if a rusty iron stake were being repeatedly hammered right behind her eyes. She tried to move her head, but the slightest jolt sent waves of nausea through her weakened body.
The dense, earthy smell of dried blood, mixed with the pungent aroma of Leaves' hemostatic roots and black moss, flooded her nostrils, suffocating her.
Slowly, as if lifting the weight of a mountain, Cara forced her eyelids open.
Her vision was blurred, the world reduced to smears of orange light from the torches on the wall and distorted shadows moving around her.
A dull hum filled her ears, masking the voices trying to reach her.
— "Mentor... Mentor, thank god, do not try to move," — a female, choked-up voice sounded near her face.
Gradually, Cara's focus adjusted. She saw Herb pale, sweaty face, leaning against the stone wall, looking as if she were on the verge of total collapse.
On the other side, the features of Beatrice and Wendy materialized; Wendy's eyes were red and swollen, overflowing with a mix of maternal relief and persistent terror.
— "What... What happened?" — Cara's voice came out as a harsh whisper, a sound that scratched her dry throat. She tried to raise her right hand to touch her own forehead, but her muscles did not obey; her body felt like it was made of molten lead.
Wendy swallowed hard, exchanging a quick, nervous glance with Beatrice. Neither of them wanted to be the bearer of bad news to the woman who, until a few days ago, had ruled the camp with an iron fist and unshakable fanaticism.
— "You have been asleep, Cara," — Wendy began, her voice trembling, kneeling even closer to the fur bed. — "It's been almost four days since... Since the incident, so Herb has exhausted almost all of her magic to stabilize the bleeding in your head and chest."
— "Four days?" — Cara gasped, the information hitting her like a second physical blow. She widened her eyes. Four whole days lost; during the cruel Months of Demons, time was the scarcest resource they possessed.
Her mind, sharpened by survival, began to work frantically to piece together the shattered fragments of her memory.
The trial.
The brazier.
The blueprint she threw into the fire.
Nightingale's defiant look tied to the stake, powerless and restrained by the God's Stone of Retaliation.
And then... The scream. The absolute chaos.
— "The traitor... Nightingale..." — Cara hissed, the anger injecting a spark of life into her cloudy pupils. She tried to prop herself up on her elbows, but an excruciating twinge in her ribs made her collapse back onto the furs. — "Where is she? What happened? How did she escape the Divine Medallion?"
Beatrice wrung her hands nervously, taking a trembling step forward.
— "We can't explain it properly, mentor. No one knows," — Beatrice murmured, her eyes darting to the cave floor. — "It was too fast. The moment you were going to sentence Nightingale's punishment, something entered the cave. A blur... It wasn't a demonic beast, it looked... It looked like a person, maybe a man, but he moved at a speed our eyes couldn't follow. He simply tore through the air, crashed into you with demonic force, and threw you against the wall."
Wendy took over the explanation, trying to keep her voice neutral.
— "When the shock allowed us to look, he was next to Nightingale. He didn't use knives to cut the ropes; he simply grabbed the Divine Medallion of Retaliation that was around her neck and... He crushed it. The stone broke into pieces in his hand, mentor, and with her magic restored, Nightingale activated the Mist and pulled him inside it. They automatically disappeared without a trace."
The words echoed in Cara's mind, triggering the memories of the exact moment of impact. She remembered the sensation of having all the air knocked out of her lungs, the crushing, uncontrollable force that lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing, and the darkness that swallowed her immediately after.
A volcanic, dark, and seething fury began to bubble in Cara's chest. She, the Snake Witch, the feared founder of the Association, the woman who had killed Church soldiers, had been defeated, humiliated, and thrown to the ground like trash without even being able to use a single scale of her snakes.
Her pride had been shattered in front of all her subordinates.
But, as the fury burned, Cara's strategic intellect, which had kept her alive for so many years, began to emerge from the sea of hatred.
A man, she thought, her teeth clenched. A man capable of moving faster than the wind. A man capable of easily crushing the Church's Holy Stone with the strength of his own bare hands.
Cara took a deep breath, ignoring the sharp pain in her broken ribs. The words Nightingale had shouted in her defense before the chaos returned to her mind with a frightening clarity.
Nightingale had spoken of a Border Town ruled by a Prince who did not hunt witches, but, more than that, over the preceding weeks, rumors circulating regarding Nightingale's mission mentioned that she was traveling with a formidable warrior, someone the younger witches whispered was "capable of defeating demonic beasts with his bare hands."
Cara had always considered this a childish invention, a heroic delusion created by desperate girls, however, now, feeling her own broken bones, the harsh reality imposed itself.
Nightingale might not have been lying entirely; that man existed, and he possessed a power that bordered on the absurd.
— "Who else was involved?" — Cara asked, her voice now cutting and cold as winter, devoid of the fragility of waking up. — "The camp wouldn't have been paralyzed just by that. Did anything else happen while I was inactive? Speak, Beatrice!"
Beatrice shrank her shoulders, terrified.
— "When the dust settled and you were bleeding... We did a headcount; two sisters are missing, mentor. Diana Argus and Lightning, they disappeared in the midst of the confusion. They certainly fled after Nightingale and the invader."
Pure, incandescent, lethal hatred ignited Cara's veins.
Betrayal.
The word tasted bitter and acidic.
She didn't care so much about Diana Argus; the former noble had always been a silent figure, a spoiled aristocrat whose magic to dye objects blue was useless for tearing out an Inquisitor's throat or hunting boars.
Diana was dead weight, a useless consumer of rations, but Lightning... Lightning was the ultimate scout; her flight was essential to mapping the dangers of the mountains.
The fact that those two had spat on the Association, abandoning their sisters to chase after the tail of a traitor, was an offense Cara could not forgive. She imagined the necks of both being crushed by the fangs of her snakes.
However, vengeance would have to wait. The physical reality of the Association was much more urgent.
With a suppressed groan, Cara tried to sit up, but Wendy immediately placed her hands on the leader's shoulders, gently forcing her back down onto the bed.
— "Mentor, please. Your fractures need rest; the impact was very severe," — Wendy pleaded, her eyes begging.
Cara looked at the cave's rustic ceiling. She was an experienced combatant; she knew how to read her own body. She knew Leaves' roots had stopped the bleeding, but bones did not heal in four days, even with magic. It could take up to weeks for her to be able to walk without the pain making her pass out, let alone lead a deadly march through mountains infested with demonic beasts.
And that changed everything.
Cara's plans to abandon the cave and guide the surviving witches on the desperate search for the Holy Mountain would be hopelessly delayed.
The Association had already lost four vital days.
The blizzard outside was at its peak, the cold would get worse, but the most lethal factor of all was not the weather; it was hunger.
During the Months of Demons, gathering frozen roots and moss barely sustained the camp of forty-one women.
Without active hunting and with the rapid advance of demonic beasts through the territory, the provisions would run out in less than a month. With her own body broken, Cara would be a burden. They couldn't fight efficiently if they had to constantly carry or defend her; they had too many mouths to feed and too few hands capable of fighting or surviving in the approaching hell.
It was then that a cruel, logical, and macabre plan began to form in Cara's sharp mind, obscured by madness.
If Nightingale had spoken the truth and there really was a refuge with abundant food in a town commanded by a heretical prince, why not use that to the Association's advantage?
Cara looked at Wendy and Beatrice.
— "Call Scroll," — Cara ordered, her voice deep, devoid of any trace of the sharp pain she felt. — "Now."
Beatrice nodded quickly and ran out of the makeshift tent.
Herb, too exhausted to opine, just huddled in her corner, sinking into a deep sleep.
Wendy remained by the bed, feeling a bad shiver run down her spine; the look the mentor had now was not that of the protective mother, but that of the snake about to strike.
Minutes later, the tent was opened.
Scroll entered, her face marked by dark bags under her eyes, but with her usual firm posture. She approached the bed, relieved to see the leader conscious, but immediately cautious at the coldness in Cara's eyes.
— "Thank heavens you woke up, Cara," — Scroll said, crossing her arms. — "The situation outside is deteriorating, provisions are counted, and the morale of the younger ones is at its limit."
— "I know. And that is exactly why I called you," — Cara replied, resting her head on the moss pillow. — "My body is broken, Scroll. I will not be able to lead the march to the Holy Mountain tomorrow, but we will leave in two days. We will lose precious time, and the food will run out; winter will have no mercy on us."
And we have too many useless mouths to feed, Cara added in her thoughts, keeping the coldness of her logic to herself.
Scroll frowned, noticing the shadow that crossed the leader's gaze.
— "What are you suggesting, Cara?"
— "I am suggesting... An act of faith," — Cara said, softening her tone of voice, disguising the cold calculation behind false exhaustion. — "Nightingale shouted to the four winds about the paradise of that Border Town. She said that there, witches have food to eat, warm clothes, and the protection of a noble. I don't believe it, but what if I am wrong?"
Wendy widened her eyes, a spark of hope mixed with confusion.
— "Mentor... You want us... You want us to move to Border Town?"
— "Do not be foolish, Wendy," — Cara reprimanded softly, although a cynical smile fought to curve her bruised lips. — "I will never bow my head to a human aristocrat. Nobles burn us; the Holy Mountain is still our only true divine salvation, but look at me. I am wounded, and look at our younger sisters; they are weak. They would not survive the journey to the Mountain under the current conditions."
Cara looked directly into Scroll's eyes, adopting the mask of the sorrowful leader who must make a bitter sacrifice.
— "We are going to separate the camp. The combat witches and the veterans who know survival will remain here with me; we will form the rear guard, however... Our younger sisters. The ones with support magic, the more fragile ones, who suffer most from the cold and hunger, we are going to gather them and send them toward this Border Town."
Internally, Cara's mind sang a much crueler melody: We get rid of the useless ones, the perfect purge. If they die on the way or at the hands of the prince, they will not be missed by the Association.
Horror painted Wendy's face at the separation, but Scroll was the first to react, her logical mind calculating the disastrous probabilities of that "mercy."
— "That is madness, Cara! It is too risky!" — Scroll protested, taking a step forward, her voice raised in shock. — "You want to send a group of inexperienced girls across the mountain? What if it is a trap? What if this Prince is just an undercover Church taskmaster? We will be handing our most vulnerable sisters directly to the pyre!"
— "And what is the alternative, Scroll?!" — Cara countered, her voice gaining strength, feigning a protective despair to cover the fury of being questioned. — "Let them starve to death in here?! Let them be devoured by beasts when the attacks intensify and we have no way to protect the mountain flank?!"
Cara coughed, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of her mouth, but she forced the words out with a dramatic, pleading tone.
— "If they stay, they will wither away. If Nightingale spoke the truth, if that asylum exists, then our most fragile sisters will find a warm roof and food; we would be giving them the chance to live that we cannot offer right now. It is the only solution so they don't die with us in the snow."
Wendy felt her stomach churn.
They were children.
They were very inexperienced and frightened girls walking towards the unknown.
— "Mentor, we cannot do this," — Wendy pleaded, her hands trembling as she approached Cara. — "They are our sisters! We swore to protect them and stick together. Sending the weakest ones away... It seems cruel; we can ration more. I myself will give up my food. Please, do not push them away."
Cara looked at Wendy.
She knew the woman in front of her like the back of her hand. She knew her fragility, her soft heart, her desperate need to see goodness in everyone, and Cara knew exactly which psychological button to push to destroy Wendy's arguments and force her obedience without looking like a monster.
A sad and manipulative smile appeared on Cara's bloody face.
She reached out her bruised hand and touched Wendy's trembling wrist with staged affection.
— "Why the despair, my dear Wendy?" — Cara asked, her voice suddenly sweet, laden with a lethal false innocence. — "Did you not defend Nightingale when she was at the stake? Did you not stand against me, against your mentor, saying that we should have the right to choose our way of life?"
Wendy froze. The blood ran cold in her veins.
Cara tilted her head, digging her cloudy gaze deep into Wendy's eyes, using the subordinate's own loyalty and empathy as a dagger against her.
— "What happened to your faith in Veronica? You risked your own reputation with me to protect her four days ago. You shouted to all of us that she would not harm the Association. If Nightingale is so pure and sincere, if her promise of a paradise is so true... Why are you afraid to send our sisters there? Are you admitting now that Nightingale deceived us and that place is a torture chamber? Do you no longer trust your beloved Nightingale, Wendy?"
The blow was surgical and overwhelming.
Wendy opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Her vocal cords seemed to have been cut. Her mind short-circuited, trapped in an inescapable rhetorical snare: if she said she feared for the girls' lives, she would be admitting that Nightingale was a liar and that Border Town was a death trap, justifying all of Cara's suspicion and proving her wrong all along. But if she claimed she trusted Nightingale, she would be giving Cara a free pass to expel the girls from the camp.
Wendy lowered her head, defeated, small tears rolling silently down her face.
Cara's manipulation had uprooted her defenses, turning her love for Nightingale into the exact tool for expelling the girls.
Scroll watched the scene with clenched fists. She saw the cold manipulation in what Cara was doing, twisting Wendy's words, but Scroll also knew that, in strictly mathematical terms of survival under the winter's attack, the food issue was undeniable. They didn't have rations for everyone, and therefore they would need to go in search of the Holy Mountain as soon as possible.
Satisfied with the silent submission of her most charitable ally, Cara leaned back onto the pelts, her breath short from the effort of the speech.
The decision was imposed under the cloak of altruistic necessity, and in the Witch Cooperation Association, the founder's word was law.
— "It is decided," — Cara pronounced, her voice firm once again, resuming the mantle of power. — "Scroll, go to the third level of the cave. I want you to gather the veterans and the active combatants."
Scroll hesitated for a millisecond, but training and despair spoke louder.
— "Who should I bring?" — Scroll asked, her tone monotonous.
— "Bring Fringe, Windseeker, and Leaf," — Cara listed, her cold, calculating mind organizing her council of war. — "Also call Catherine, Red Pepper, and Beatrice. And Wendy will stay here too. You are the strong core of this Association; you know the capabilities of all the residents of this cave better than anyone."
The leader of the witches closed her eyes, her face relaxing into a false expression of peace, although her thoughts were as dark as the night outside.
— "Gather around my bed. We will analyze name by name; we will decide tonight, once and for all, which sisters will carry our legacy to the Holy Mountain... And which will receive the "blessing" to leave in search of the Border Town sanctuary."
And then we will see, Cara thought with an icy smile that didn't reach her lips, if these test rats of mine survive.
The tent plunged into a sepulchral silence.
Scroll turned on her heels and left to fulfill the orders, her heart heavy as lead.
Wendy remained kneeling, silent beside the bed. In the dark of that night, while the wind of the Impassable Mountain Range howled relentlessly against the rock, the older witches prepared to judge their own sisters. Not with fire and silver as the Church would do, but under the cruel guise of pragmatism and survival, sealing the fates of dozens of innocent girls in a deadly gamble against the winter.