The silence in the cave was thick, heavy, suffocating.
The cold air seemed to have solidified, capturing Wendy's ragged breathing and the crackling of the torches in a macabre tableau of indecision and despair.
Apart from the central tension, standing perfectly upright at the edges of the shadows cast by the flames, Fringe—or Cecilia Selda, as the nobility had once known her—observed the spectacle unfolding with the coldness of a calculating predator.
Her delicate face, framed by the silky platinum hair that fell elegantly over her right eye, betrayed not a single drop of the storm of frantic calculations taking place within her mind. Her left eye, cold and silver, absorbed every nuance of the chamber: the sweat of pain on Cara's forehead, the tears in Wendy's eyes, Scroll's paralyzing hesitation.
Our glorious mentor has finally gone completely mad, Fringe thought, her gaze fixed on Cara's pathetic, wounded figure lying on the fur-covered bed. The Sacred Mountain is not a sanctuary. It never was. It is nothing more than a tomb of ice and stone, a fairy tale invented to keep us marching until our lungs freeze or the demonic beasts devour us.
Fringe discreetly adjusted the lace cuffs of her beige Victorian dress.
She already knew that Cara's leadership was driven by blind fanaticism, but the crushing defeat at the hands of the unknown intruder who had rescued Nightingale had broken something fundamental within the Serpent Witch.
Cara isn't merely trying to save supplies, Fringe assessed, her analytical mind dissecting the leader's hidden motivations.
She is purging her own failures, wanting to rid herself of useless witches because their mere presence reminds her of her weakness.
She wants to shape an army of fanatics, and there is no room for frightened girls.
Yet while Red Pepper seethed with indignation and Wendy dissolved into tears of pure empathy, Fringe saw, shining in the middle of that pit of cruelty, the perfect opportunity.
A golden and irresistible escape route.
The Border Village...
The idea spun through her mind like a gleaming gold coin.
Nightingale was no fool. She could be idealistic, impulsive, and stubborn, but she would never lie about a safe refuge if there were a risk of sending her sisters to the pyre. If there was a human prince offering witches shelter, food, and protection, Fringe wanted to see it with her own eyes. Anything—even the court of a heretical aristocrat—was preferable to starving to death in the ravines of the Impassable Mountain Range.
But she could not simply desert. If she tried to flee alone, Windseeker would hunt her down like an animal in the snow, or Cara would order her serpents to strangle her in her sleep.
She needed a legitimate way out, a permission granted by Cara herself.
That was when the plan crystallized in her brilliant, pragmatic mind. Cara's idea of separating the useless members was exactly the excuse she needed.
I will go to the Border Village, Fringe decided, a ghostly smile threatening to curve her perfectly sculpted lips, though she quickly suppressed it. All I need to do is present myself as the benevolent soul, the compassionate martyr willing to sacrifice her own safety to guide the blind little sheep through the frozen hell.
Cara is so desperate to rid herself of dead weight and curious about what Nightingale said, that she will gladly accept my "sacrifice," if only to make certain these girls disappear from her sight forever.
As Fringe prepared her psychological trap, the deadlock at the center of the tent reached its breaking point.
Scroll, unable to clench her hand into a fist, closed her eyes in disbelief.
"We can't..." Scroll whispered, her voice heavy with bitter defeat. "We can't simply accept this."
The cave plunged into absolute silence.
Suddenly, a harsh, wet, ragged cough shattered the stillness.
Cara painfully propped herself up on her left elbow, ignoring the fresh blood staining the bandages of healing roots wrapped around her ribs. The leader's gaze was dark, fanatical, and filled with poisonous pride.
"You have failed in your pragmatism, Scroll," Cara hissed, her voice hoarse yet resonating with an authority that demanded total submission. "But I am the leader of this Association. I am its founder. The final verdict is mine, and no one else's."
The Serpent Witch raised her chin, casting a disdainful look at Scroll before fixing her clouded eyes on Wendy.
"It is decided!" Cara announced, her voice cutting through the air like a whip cracking in the cold. "The separation will take place. The combat witches and veterans will march with me upward, into the merciless depths of the Impassable Mountain Range, and the non-combatants... They will descend southward, toward this so-called Border Village."
Wendy let out a strangled whimper, collapsing to her knees on the rough stone floor.
Her hands covered her soot-stained face, the pain tearing through her kind soul.
However, before Red Pepper's outrage could manifest again in an explosion of fire, Cara raised her right hand, demanding immediate silence.
The mentor's expression softened in a macabre fashion. The muscles of her bloodstained face forced themselves into a mask of paternalistic pity, a sick disguise designed to sweeten the venom of her words.
"However..." Cara continued, adopting a grave and theatrical tone, pretending to be anguished despite the fact that her cold eyes completely contradicted her performance. "I am still the mother of this Association. I am the benefactor of every one of you, so I cannot, in good conscience, allow all of our inexperienced sisters to march toward possible death at the hands of the Church merely because of Wendy's beloved friend's lies."
Cara looked toward the wind witch, her words like surgical knives, slow and precise.
"Nightingale betrayed us, and I refuse to allow everyone to pay for her crime. If the Border Village is a chamber of torture, I will not condemn our entire future to it. Therefore... I will not send all of the support witches."
The witches around her held their breath, caught in the leader's psychological web.
"Only a smaller group will go," Cara declared, her eyes gleaming with hidden cruelty. "An exploratory group, so to speak. If they survive, if Nightingale told the truth, they will have found salvation. But if not... The loss will be contained. I have personally selected those who will leave."
Cara rested her head back against the rough furs, briefly closing her eyes as though the decision were tearing her apart from within, although Fringe, from her dark corner, knew it was nothing but theater.
"Write down the names," Cara ordered, her voice suddenly cold and dry as death. "Mystery Moon, Cherry, Ellen, Eyesight, Soraya Zoen, Library, Feather, and Selena."
The eight names echoed against the damp walls of the cave, each one falling like a heavy, lethal stone upon Wendy's shoulders.
They were precisely the witches who were the least useful in combat and the most inept at surviving in extreme environments.
Cara had not chosen an exploration group; she had tied a stone around the girls' necks and was throwing them into the sea.
Wendy felt her stomach drop.
The stone floor seemed to vanish beneath her knees.
Mystery Moon, a tiny, timid girl whose magic depended upon flawed and chaotic control. Soraya Zoen, quiet and possessing the ability to create harmless magical drawings. Cherry and Library, girls with fragile bodies, completely incapable of wielding a sword. And the others... Just frightened children who needed warmth and guidance.
Worst of all was the final revelation.
The name that made Wendy's blood run cold.
"Feather?"
Wendy's scream tore from her throat before she could restrain it. She sprang to her feet, her brown eyes wide with horror.
The sadness that had previously overwhelmed her was suddenly replaced by a desperate, fierce, maternal anguish. The breeze inside the cave began to swirl, responding to the emotional instability of her wind magic.
Wendy took two quick steps toward Cara's bed, stopping only when Windseeker tensed her shoulders, ready to intervene.
"Mentor, you can't be serious!" Wendy pleaded, tears now streaming freely down her face, washing the soot from her cheeks. "Feather is only a few days away from awakening! Her own body is already at its limit. We know how dangerous an awakening is during the Demon Months. Without the protection of the cave, without Herb and Leaf caring for her, she won't survive the fever in the snow! The pain of the magic being born will tear her apart from within before they even find shelter!"
Wendy gestured frantically toward the other witches, her voice breaking with emotion.
"And the others? Look at the names you chose, Cara! With the exception of Cherry, who has a little more experience, none of those girls is even twenty years old! They're teenagers, children who have never held a knife or hunting crossbow in their lives! You're sending blind sheep into the middle of a pack of demonic wolves. The snow is thick outside, the wind cuts to the bone, and if they encounter even a single demonic beast, it will be the end of all of them!"
The brown-haired witch clasped her hands at chest level, her face twisted into a mask of uncontrollable agony.
Empathy, the bright core of her very soul, propelled her forward, forcing her to offer what she held most precious: her own life.
"If... If this is your non-negotiable verdict," Wendy breathed deeply, trying to stabilize the whirlwind of wind that was beginning to tousle her hair and disturb the flames of the torches. "Then I will go with them. If they are going to the Border Village, I will go too. I'm a combat witch. I can blow the snow away from their faces, guide them along the slippery slopes, and push the beasts away while they run. I will be the shield they do not have."
Wendy stared directly at Cara, her eyes shining with desperate, moving determination.
"Let me go, Cara. Let me protect them. If you truly want them to have a chance, you cannot send them alone. They need me."
The atmosphere became so tense that the very air seemed to crackle.
Catherine narrowed her icy eyes, while Folha brought her hands to her chest, both touched and terrified by Wendy's suicidal courage.
But Cara's reaction was not understanding. It was pure, destructive, volcanic fury.
"Enough!!"
The Serpent Witch's roar shattered the cave's stillness with the force of thunder.
Cara thrust her torso forward with such violence that everyone could hear the wet crack of her ribs shifting painfully, but the leader did not utter a single groan.
The mask of paternalistic benevolence melted instantly, revealing a face disfigured by hatred and humiliation. Cara's eyes became bloodshot, glowing with the feverish madness of someone losing control of her own domain.
"How dare you challenge me again, Wendy?!" Cara spat the words, droplets of saliva flying toward the wind witch, her index finger extended and trembling with rage. "You want to protect them? You want to protect the girls from Nightingale's mistake? Then know this: the mistake was not Nightingale's. The mistake is yours for remaining blinded by affection for a traitor!"
Cara breathed heavily, each breath a grotesque wheeze in the silent chamber, yet her gaze remained fixed upon Wendy like the venomous fangs of her own summons.
"You are a veteran combatant. Your place is in the rear, protecting me and the main march toward the Sacred Mountains! Do you think my army can afford to do without your wind simply because your heart cries for a handful of weak girls? You swore an oath to the Association, not to your maternal guilt!"
The witch leader slammed herself against the stone wall, her eyes sweeping across the shocked faces of the council.
"It has all been decided! No one changes a single comma of my decree. The eight girls will march to the Border Village as soon as the storm lets up, and you, Wendy, will march with me to the Sacred Mountain. Any attempt at desertion will be considered treason against the Association, and traitors... We have all seen their fate at the pyre. This discussion is over!"
Wendy collapsed.
All strength fled from her legs, and she curled up on the cold floor, openly sobbing, the wind magic dying around her.
The brutal finality of Cara's words had crushed her last hope. She was being forced to watch the slaughter of her protégées.
Scroll turned her face toward the wall, unable to look at Wendy's tears, while Windseeker remained rigid and expressionless, simply waiting for the final orders.
The Nightly Scrutiny had reached its repulsive climax, leaving a trail of shattered souls in its wake.
No one would dare challenge Cara's insane fury again.
Or at least, that was what everyone thought.
The soft, polished sound of light footsteps drew the group's attention.
From the dark edge of the tent, where the shadows seemed denser, an elegant figure moved toward the light.
Cecilia Selda walked with the unshakable grace of an aristocrat entering a ballroom. Her beige dress rustled softly; her platinum hair caught the flickering torchlight. There was no anger, despair, or fear on her symmetrical face. There was only a calculating serenity, polished to perfection.
She stopped before Cara's bed, ignoring the fury still simmering in the leader's eyes.
With a slow movement, Fringe clasped her hands over her abdomen, maintaining a posture of profound and feigned respect as she inclined her head slightly.
"Mentor Cara," Fringe's voice sounded like crystal being touched in the darkness—soft, melodious, yet sharp enough to pierce the hatred hanging in the air. "Please, do not waste your vital strength on Wendy's insubordination. Your body needs absolute rest for the great march that awaits you."
Fringe smiled.
A polished, calm smile that concealed the most lethal of intentions.
Her silver eye blinked, calculating her next move with perfect precision.
"I completely understand your dilemma, and I admire your wisdom in protecting the Association. However, sending these girls alone, without a supervisor loyal to you, could be imprudent, if I may... I have an idea for dealing with this situation."