The two of them talked for a long time. They talked about the time when they traveled together from Silver City to the Impassable Mountain Range, what happened when they heard about a soon to killed witches, how they survived the Months of Demons. Nightingale had a lot to say, so much so that Wendy was only occasionally able to throw in one or two sentences. During the last five years, this two were so inseparable that they had developed a tacit understanding between each other. So the time passed slowly until finally the candles were about to extinguish. Seeing this Wendy began to laugh and asked, “How is it? Can’t you sleep because of Lightning’s actions today?”
“What are you talking about…?”
“What else can it be,” Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Veronica, we are witches, you should know what that means.”
“…” Nightingale kept silent, and even after a long time she didn’t know what to say, “Well.”
This fate, there was no witch who could escape it. Wendy put away her smile, sighed and then said, “Roland Wimbledon it the kingdoms 4th Prince, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he will take over the throne. Then when he rules the kingdom, he will be able to present us sisters with a shelter against the Church.
But that would also mean that he has become the King, and then there will come the time, where he has to marry a Duke’s daughter or the princess of another kingdom. Then they will get children, maybe one or several. If it’s a boy, he will inherit the country, and if it’s a girl she will be married off to another noble family.”
Here Wendy paused for a moment, giving Nightingale time to prepare since she had to say words, which no witch wanted to hear, “Veronica, we are witches, witches cannot give birth to children.”
“Even with the most optimistic outcome, where there is no difference between a ordinary people and us witches, where we can freely walk along every road through the kingdom even after the death of His Highness. With occasional cases of outstanding witches gaining the right to enter the upper ranks of society, maybe even get canonized as nobles. There will still always be the case that we witches will never be able to have any descendants. And without any descendants, we are unable to continue the family’s glory, so the nobles won’t even consider marrying any witch. So we will gain some things, but at the same time, an important part will be taken from us. ‘This is our fate,’ she whispered, “I wish I didn’t need to tell you this.”
“I see,” Nightingale whispered.
…
When Nightingale had finally left, Wendy didn’t feel so good. But she believed that Nightingale would still be able to overcome this setback, after all, she had already crossed so many difficulties, she surely will also be able to cross this threshold.
Of this, Wendy was convinced.
“With this, our service period is over, right?” asked Cat’s Claw who was clearing the square of the burning debris of the bonfire, and then continued with a voice full of regret, “I really don’t want to go back to the mines and work in a hole. I have to say, I already miss the Months of Demons, a little.”
“Yeah, and I don’t want to deal with those stones again either,” Jop immediately agreed, “The most important thing is that the difference in salary is too much. When we were assigned to the artillery, we had meat every day and a salary of 15 silver royals each day.”
“Don’t say such foolish words,” said Van’er while holding a torch high to illuminate the surrounding “His Highness provided all this food to us so that no person would starve to death during the Months of Demons. You only need to remember what happened the previous two years, not even half of the people from the old district were able to survive! Did you already forget this? I’ll say it once more, it’s unlikely that the team will be dissolved, His Highness just put us into the artillery team and burned so much gunpowder to train us, do you think that was all without reason?”
“But the Month of Demons is over, so, why would His Highness still need the artillery?” asked Rodney while leaning on a broom.
The next morning, the teams were assembled and Van’er’s previous statement was confirmed.
