“I know, Wendy,” Nightingale nodded. “Yes, we are Witches.”
Of course, this information could not be told lightly it could only be used as a last resort, so Nightingale didn’t give it away. Within her heart, she said sorry to Wendy and then changed the subject: “What’s your impression of the church?”
“Why would you suddenly asked this?” hearing this question Wendy clearly became startled.
“When I was at His Highness side in the stronghold’s castle, the High Priest paid him a visit and offered to support him in conquering the throne.”
“How did he answer?” Wendy’s voice became strained. “Or did he order you to leave previously to the start of the conversation?”
Nightingale smiled and shook her head, softly saying. “He just asked me to avoid the range of the other side’s God’s Stone of Retaliation, and His Royal Highness didn’t wear that thing himself. Wendy, His Highness did not agree to the invitation of the church, he refused their offer.”
The latter clearly felt relieved, then she said with a bit melancholy, “Unfortunately, our help to His Highness is limited, unlike the Church, whose forces cover the entire continent. If His Royal Highness took their offer, I’m afraid he would soon be able to sit on the throne…”
“Only God knows… His Highness said the High Priest spoke only a mouthful of baloney, that no one should trust him,” Nightingale paused, “There was another important matter.”
Taking out the red and black pills, “In the fog, the pills have the same color as the God’s Stone of Retaliation, this is inconceivable. Both of us know that the sisters who were discovered to be witches would swallow the God’s Stone of Retaliation, which is no different from committing suicide. The High Priest said that the pills were produced inside the Prayer Room in the Holy City, and I remember that you used to live there in a monastery. Did you have ever heard of such an organization? ”
Wendy had helped Nightingale to leave Silver City and during their run, she had set up traps for the bounty-hungry villains who were following them, at the same time it was also a kind of revenge — one method was to force them to swallow their own God’s Stone of Retaliation. After swallowing the villain would soon die, the whole body would roll up like it was suffering from dehydration, and would look like a fish exposed to the scorching sun.
“I never heard of something like that,” Wendy, closed her eyes and began slowly to tell, “Since the first moment I can remember, I’ve lived in a monastery in the Old Holy City, surrounded by high walls, with no view of the sky beyond. Everything was taught to us with hospitality by the nuns, things like reading and writing or the understanding of maps. I still remember the name of my teacher, Faria. She once gave us a book to read, it was the special introduction about the Old Holy City. There were churches in the city, monasteries, libraries, memorial halls and heroic walls, but I have never heard of a prayer Room in the city. I lived in the monastery for more than 10 years, until the accident happened…”
Wendy had already previously mentioned to Nightingale that the monastery was one day attacked by a witch and many people also died during that attack. Taking advantage of the whole chaos, Wendy was able to get out of the monastery, “Also I don’t know which witch had so much courage to dare to challenge the church alone, but she saved you at least.”
“No, Veronica, the with came from inside the church,” Wendy shook her head, “She was, like me, a member of the monastery.”
“What… do you mean?”
“The girls living in the monastery could be divided into three groups, one group consisted out of people like me, who stayed from early age in the monastery, not knowing their own origins; one were orphans who lived on the streets and were adopted by the local church and afterwards sent to the monastery; and the last group consisted out of girls sold to the church by their own parents. We were all separated by age and placed into different quarters, and even the teaching wasn’t the same. From an early age onward we learned how to recognize the words, from ten to fourteen years old we studied carols and after fourteen we were schooled in etiquette. The early classes were called the literacy class by the nuns, and the older classes were called the choir class and the ceremony class. Once we became adults we would be sent away from the monastery.
This was the first time that Nightingale heard the other speaking about this — before, Wendy had never elaborated on her experience during her life in the monastery.
