At that time, in the cruel and monotonous reality of the medieval era, there was no nightlife per se. In fact, the people of that muddy world didn't even have a word in their vocabulary to describe it. When the sun set and swallowed the light, the darkness became absolute, punctuated only by distant fires or flickering torches that barely kept the shadows at bay. Without the distraction of glowing screens, electricity, or the bustling streets of his past life, the silence of the castle was deafening. Everyone, from commoners to lords, went to sleep early, surrendering to the fatigue of physically exhausting days.
Roland sighed, feeling the weight of the day accumulate on his shoulders. His mind, still vibrating at the frequency of the twenty-first century, clamored for activity, for something to consume his nervous energy. He even considered using his absolute right as a prince to order a maid to play some sport with him in the corridors, just to get the blood flowing and stave off insomnia. But, in the end, he couldn't do it. His modern, sensible side prevented him from giving such an absurd order; he felt too embarrassed to speak up and look like a lunatic to the servants who already looked at him with a mixture of dread and confusion.
Resigned, he walked over to the nightstand. As soon as the wick caught fire and he lit the solitary candle in his room, dimly illuminating the heavy tapestries and rustic oak furniture, a sharp, dry sound tore through the silence.
He heard clapping. And it came from behind him.
Roland's blood froze in his veins. Then, a female voice, soft, velvety, and dangerously calm, drifted through the room, blending into the dim light:
— "It was a spectacular lecture, I must admit. A performance worthy of applause. I truly did not expect that His Royal Highness, the infamous 4th Prince, was in fact such an educated and... peculiar man."
It was the voice of a completely unknown woman. Instantly, Roland felt a biting chill run down his spine, paralyzing his lungs. His rational mind collapsed for a second. How? God only knew how a stranger could have entered his private chambers, bypassed the guards in the corridor, unlocked the heavy oak door, and positioned herself behind his back without him hearing the slightest noise. If she wasn't a professional assassin sent by his dear siblings, what else could she be?!
His survival instinct took control. Ignoring his fatigue, Roland spun on his heels and immediately ran toward the heavy door. Panic blurred his vision. But before his trembling fingers could even touch the cold iron of the doorknob, he felt a sudden, violent gust of freezing wind brush the skin of his ear, followed by a sharp thud against the wood.
He blinked, his breath caught in his throat. He discovered, his eyes wide with terror, that an exquisitely forged silver dagger was firmly embedded in the door, the wood splintered around the gleaming blade. It was barely a finger's width away from his cheek. The hilt of the weapon still vibrated with the force of the impact. If he had taken a step one millimeter wider, he would be dead.
— "Please, do not be impulsive, Your Highness," the velvety voice sounded again, this time carrying a tone of dark amusement. — "I do not want to hurt you. If I did, you wouldn't have had time to take even the first step. I only came here to talk to you."
Roland's heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum. Well, was this the new fashion of Graycastle etiquette? A knife almost in your eyeball was a civilized way of telling people you wanted to have a chat? He swallowed the dry fear scratching his throat, forcing his trembling legs to support his weight, and turned around slowly. Under the lethal threat of such a precise dagger, all he could do was yield to the overwhelming pressure and do exactly what the other side wanted. He wasn't a martial arts master; he was just an engineer in a fragile royal body.
By the faint, flickering light of the candle trembling on the table, Roland finally managed to see the intruder.
She sat in a relaxed, confident manner on the edge of his own bed. Her slender body was entirely hidden beneath a cloak and a robe of thick, dark fabric, and her head was perfectly covered by a wide, deep hood, so that he could not see the slightest glimpse of her true facial appearance. Only the darkness of the fabric faced him. Her shadow, cast by the wavering candlelight, stretched monstrously, occupying more than half of the stone wall behind her, giving her the appearance of an ancestral ghost straight out of winter horror legends.
Roland cleared his throat, desperately trying to find the authoritative voice of a prince.
— "Who are you?"
— "I haven't had a real name for a long time," she replied, her voice carrying a sharp melancholy. — "But my sisters call me Nightingale."
In a fluid motion, defying gravity, she stood up, adjusted the folds of her cloak with military elegance, walked silently to the center of the room, and unexpectedly dropped to one knee. With the hood still covering her face, she performed a perfectly executed noble bow, the kind taught only in the strictest halls of ancient kingdoms.
— "First and foremost, and before your heartbeat alerts the deaf guards outside... I am here to express my sincerest gratitude to you, Roland Wimbledon, Your Highness."
Express gratitude? With a stab to the door? The cognitive dissonance made Roland's head spin. As she knelt, he strained his eyes in the gloom and noticed that certain specific lines on her dark dress, reacting to the candlelight, emitted a unique, almost magical metallic glow. The thin lines formed an unmistakable geometric pattern: three parallel, overlapping triangles, with an unsettling eye drawn perfectly in the middle triangle... It looked familiar. Where had he seen that before? Roland's memory, sharpened by his intelligence, scoured Barov's archives from the past few days.
The realization hit him like a punch. The pattern on the top of that seized ancient coin... It's the Eye of the Holy Mountain. The heretical symbol the Administrative Director had shown him with such disgust. The official insignia of the Witch Cooperation Association.
In his mind, Barov's terrified words echoed again, loud and clear. The answer escaped his lips in a tense whisper:
— "You are... a witch!?"
— "Hahahaha!" — she let out a series of light, silvery, and genuinely amused laughs, the sound echoing softly against the room's stones. — "Your Highness is truly knowledgeable. And quick. Yes, I am."
Hearing the confirmation of the other party's identity, contradicting all the logic of the kingdom, Roland let out a thunderous sigh of relief. His shoulders slumped. She wasn't a political assassin sent by his bloodthirsty brothers and sisters. A witch had no interest in the throne of Graycastle.
He relaxed his posture, recovering a bit of his princely arrogance.
— "Why would a witch like you, a creature hunted by the entire world, come to this small, remote town on the edge of hell they call the Northern Mountains? I don't know where you heard the news about me, but your ability to get here is a bit slow, don't you think? If I truly wanted to hang Anna, she would already be dead, buried, and long forgotten."
— "I know that very well. And I assure you, if you had actually given that execution order... I would never be here wasting time talking to you. Your head would be rolling down the castle steps." Nightingale stood up gracefully and leaned back against the bed again, as if the room were hers. — "The Witch Cooperation Association does not like to intervene in worldly affairs, and we strictly avoid matters related to royalty. Honestly, for a witch with my skills, killing a prince in the dark of his room would not be such a difficult job. But I want to honor our Association's code. However... if you leave a bad impression, I still can, and will, kill you without hesitation."
It was a clear, imminent, and terrifyingly factual threat. She wasn't bluffing. Roland tried to lighten the heavy mood in the room before the tension suffocated them:
— "The witch you speak of, Anna, is alive, well, and considerably well-fed."
— "I know that. And I know that besides her, there is another little girl named Nana," she nodded, the shadows of her hood swaying. — "I didn't arrive yesterday, Your Highness. I came to this place exactly a week ago, but I decided not to show myself to you. I stayed hidden in a veil your mortal eyes cannot see. But I saw everything. Absolutely everything you have done in this castle."
She paused intentionally, the silence dragging on, and when she spoke again, her voice had lost its irony, replaced by an intense, cautious curiosity.
— "But I confess that you were not the only mystery that kept me here. Although I don't quite understand why the infamous 4th Prince doesn't show the blind, traditional malice against witches... what truly shocked me were your companions."
Roland frowned, confused.
— "My companions? Barov? Carter?"
— "Do not play the fool," she cut in, and for the first time, Roland sensed a hesitation in the assassin's unshakable voice. — "I am referring to the two foreigners. They are called Arthur and William, correct? — During this week, I studied them as much as I studied you. And, Your Highness, I have traveled this kingdom for years, I have seen lords, commoners, and witches. But I have never seen men like them."
She leaned slightly forward, her hands resting on her knees.
— "I heard your conversation with the one you call Arthur. I tried to find any sign of Magic Power flow that would justify the prophetic knowledge he possesses... But I found nothing. He is completely devoid of magic, yet almost everything he told you was true."
Her voice now sounded almost marveling.
— "And then there is William... I watched him humiliate your Commander Knight in the hall. I saw his movements. The way he manipulates his own weight, the brutal, calculated efficiency of his strikes, the understanding of what he called 'vector of impact'... It is as if he is a forged weapon. They mock death, ignore the Church, and treat the power of witches not as a miracle or a curse, but as... tools. Who could they be, Your Highness? How did you find these two strangers, who also possess no hatred towards witches?"
Roland rubbed his forehead intensely, processing the flood of information. A pang of cold panic settled in his stomach. So she had been here the whole time? All the confidential conversations, all the modern strategies Arthur devised regarding the Duke's economy, all the discussions about William's firearms... "everything he had done had been seen by her"? This implied that she had been following them night and day, breathing in the same environment, and neither he, nor William's sharpened instincts, nor Carter's trained guards had the slightest, microscopic inkling of her presence?
The magic in this world was terrifyingly overpowered.