The journey through the castle corridors to his quarters felt to William like the longest march of his entire life.
Each step echoed off the polished stone walls like the beat of a funeral drum, incessantly reminding him of his own failure.
The physical exhaustion of the three-day journey through the deadly blizzard of the Impassable Mountain Range was overwhelming, making his muscles throb and his bones feel made of lead. But that was nothing compared to the crushing weight compressing his chest.
Guilt was a voracious parasite.
William dragged his feet, his eyes fixed on the stone floor, ignoring the warm tapestries and the flickering light of the torches.
He just wanted to reach the solitude of his room, lock the heavy oak door, throw himself onto the bed, and pull the thick blankets over his head. He wanted the dark to swallow his thoughts. He wanted to stop thinking about the mountain, stop thinking about fractured timelines, and above all, stop thinking about Wendy, who had been left behind in the dark of that cave under Cara's fanatical leadership, solely and exclusively because he had been an impatient fool.
Reaching the door to his quarters, he rested his forehead against the cold wood for a second, letting out a long, trembling sigh before turning the iron handle.
The room was steeped in a soft gloom, illuminated only by the pale light of the winter moon filtering through the thick glass window.
William took a step inside, closing the door behind him, ready to collapse. However, his senses, sharpened by training and constant tension, picked up a presence almost immediately.
Someone was there.
Looking up, for a split second, William's exhausted mind thought he had taken the wrong door and entered someone else's quarters.
Near the window, her figure partially enveloped by the silver darkness of the night, stood a woman.
She wasn't wearing the dirty, torn rags of their escape, nor was she covered in the blood and soot of the cave. She wore ordinary clothes, a simple dress of soft, clean cotton that the castle maids must have provided after her bath.
But what truly gladdened William was the fact that her appearance was no longer hidden from the outside world by the black-and-white distortion of her magic. The veil had fallen, and now, everyone could see her clearly in her true form.
It was Nightingale.
William's mind jolted, and the memory gears of the original work spun furiously.
He knew that scene; he knew the exact setup of that scenario because of the story from his past life.
In the original plot, after being saved and taken in, Nightingale would break into Prince Roland's quarters at night to offer him her absolute loyalty, but Roland was on the other side of the castle, probably sleeping or drinking in his office. She wasn't there for Roland. She was there for him; which was yet another fruit of his changes to the story, but this was an alteration he did not regret.
When Nightingale noticed the sound of the door closing and William's arrival, she turned around.
William's breath caught in his throat.
Even though she had rested properly for only a few hours after the meal and a hot bath, the transformation was something that defied comprehension.
Her face was stunning, more beautiful than the vast majority of nobles and queens who inhabited the most expensive paintings in that world. The dirt and exhaustion had been washed away, revealing flawless skin. Her cheeks, once pale from poison and the cold of the snow, now boasted a slightly rosy, healthy hue. Her blonde hair, now clean and dry, fell in soft waves over her shoulders, no longer giving her the dull, brittle appearance of a fugitive.
Under the moonlight, she looked almost ethereal.
William didn't have the slightest shadow of a doubt in his heart.
Veronica, the woman behind the codename Nightingale, was unquestionably the most beautiful and incredible woman to ever set foot in those lands.
Nightingale rose gracefully from the window seat and began to walk slowly toward him.
Her steps were silent, her dress rustling softly against the stone floor.
The expression on her face was not that of a stealthy assassin, nor of an embittered witch, but of a woman who had made the most important and irrevocable decision of her existence.
William stood motionless, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten, replaced by a mute reverence as she approached.
As she stopped a few steps away from him, the atmosphere in the room shifted.
The air seemed to grow thicker, imbued with a ceremonial solemnity. Nightingale raised her right hand.
The cold gleam of steel caught the moonlight as a perfectly sharp dagger materialized between her fingers.
With a fluid, determined movement that carried all the elegance of her noble upbringing mixed with the lethality of her life as a witch, Nightingale bent her knees and lowered herself to the floor.
She knelt before William.
Bowing her head slightly in the ultimate sign of submission and respect, she held the dagger's blade with both hands, offering the hilt toward him—the universal gesture of swearing one's life to the will of another.
When she opened her mouth, her voice didn't sound like a stealthy whisper, but like an unbreakable oath, spoken in a formal tone and laden with a deep emotion that made the room's walls feel like sacred witnesses.
— "William... I, Veronica, also known in the dark as Nightingale, swear." She paused, her golden eyes rising to meet his, shining with fierce devotion. — "As long as you are benevolent toward witches, as long as your heart remains just... I shall be at your service. Whether as a strong, unbreakable shield against the demons that threaten these lands, or as your personal sword hidden in the night to slit your enemies' throats. I will do so without any fear of regret, until the very last moment of my life, until my blood dries on the ground. This is my oath to you."
The silence that followed those words was deafening.
William felt a shiver run up his spine, spreading through every nerve ending in his body.
He looked at the woman kneeling before him, offering her own life on a silver platter. A restrained smile, laden with gentle humility, curved the soldier's lips.
He thought about who he really was.
He wasn't a noble of pure lineage.
He had no royal blood coursing through his veins, no land titles, no castles to his name, and no crowns to show off.
He was just an ordinary person, a man from another world thrown into the middle of a war that wasn't his, who now possessed abnormal strength and a stubborn protective instinct; but it was undeniably enchanting—and deeply moving—the raw chivalry of seeing someone so powerful desire to swear loyalty to him in that way.
The scene demanded that he take the dagger, touch her shoulder with the blade, and accept the oath as a lord accepts his vassal. But William didn't want to be a lord, and he definitely didn't want Nightingale to be his vassal.
Slowly, William took a step forward.
Instead of accepting the dagger's hilt, he bent his own knees. With the fabric of his trousers brushing the stone floor, William knelt exactly in front of Nightingale, lowering himself to her level so their faces were at the same height.
Nightingale's eyes widened slightly, surprised by the sudden break in the noble protocol she knew so well.
With a gentle gesture, William raised his hands and enveloped hers, which were still holding the dagger. His fingers were warm, calloused, and firm. He pushed her hands gently back toward her chest.
— "Put away your blade, Veronica," William said, his voice low and imbued with a raw sincerity that resonated in the witch's chest. — "I don't want an oath that sounds like a coin exchanged for protection. I don't want you to be a debt that must be paid in blood. I want you to stay by my side because you choose to stay. And not because the words of an immutable promise bind you to me."
He let go of her hands, and then looked deep into her eyes.
— "If, after fighting by my side, after seeing my pathetic failures and my victories, after knowing the flawed man that I am... If after all that you still decide to remain with me, then your loyalty will be stronger, truer than any formal vow that could be made tonight."
Finishing his sentence, William extended his open right hand toward her.
Not for her to kiss like a master's, but as one extends a hand to an equal, to a partner.
Nightingale looked at the outstretched hand, her heart beating wildly against her ribs.
An overwhelming, warm emotion formed a knot in her throat.
Her whole life, from the abandonment of nobility to the horrors of a clandestine life, she had been treated as a tool, a monster, or a pawn on someone else's board. Here was a man with the power to destroy beasts, refusing her submission and demanding only her free will.
With a smile that completely lit up the room's darkness, Nightingale raised her own hand and grasped his firmly.
William helped her up, and they both stood, their hands still joined for a brief moment before letting go.
The tension of the oath had dissipated, replaced by a comfortable, silent intimacy. However, Nightingale's smile lost a bit of its shine when she noticed that, despite the tender acceptance and the shared moment, William's eyes still carried that same dense, stormy shadow.
He had accepted her presence, but his shoulders remained hunched under an invisible burden.
Nightingale took a step closer, closing the distance between them. She wasn't just an assassin; she read people's intentions and feelings better than anyone.
— "William..." her voice sounded sweeter now, stripped of formalities. — "You saved my life. You challenged an entire camp, broke the Church's curse, and brought me into the light. You brought us to safety, but ever since we left that cave and braved the blizzard, you've carried a cloud of mourning in your eyes. Why are you so saddened? What is eating you up inside?"
William swallowed hard.
He looked away toward the window, where the snow continued to fall outside. He wanted to lie, to say it was just exhaustion, but she would find out with her magic, and the promise of equality he had just made allowed no cowardice.
He walked to the edge of the bed and sat heavily on the mattress, resting his elbows on his knees and hiding his face in his hands.
— "It's Wendy," his voice came out muffled through his fingers, laden with palpable pain. — "I... I ruined everything, Veronica. I got involved when I shouldn't have, and because of that, she's still there."
Nightingale frowned, walking over to him and sitting beside him on the edge of the bed.
— "What do you mean you 'ruined everything'? Wendy always keeps her guard up when it comes to help, she didn't want to follow us. It wasn't your fault she wasn't ready."
William lowered his hands, staring at the stone floor with eyes welling with frustration. He tried to find the words to explain the unexplainable without sounding like a madman. He remembered the superficial conversation he had with Arthur, but Arthur was pragmatic, not caring about the story's casualties as long as the outcome was advantageous. William couldn't be like that.
— "You don't understand... I possess knowledge about how things were supposed to happen. A foreseen future, so to speak," William began, measuring his words carefully. — "In the future that was supposed to occur, in the prophetic books I know of... Cara would have completely lost her mind during your trial. When Wendy tried to intervene to save your life, to stop Cara from driving that iron into you, Cara would have attacked Wendy without hesitation. She would have used one of her snakes to bite Wendy's arm."
Nightingale held her breath, the horrific image of her mother figure bleeding and suffering flashing through her mind in a jolt of terror.
— "And because of that unforgivable aggression, because of the pain and the shock of seeing her own mentor try to kill her, Wendy would finally realize the truth," William continued, his voice breaking. — "With no options, she would have abandoned Cara and the others, leaving the cave with you—gravely injured, but convinced to come to Border Town. She would be a part of this. But then... I couldn't stand waiting outside. I saw the threat, panicked, and stormed the place before things took their natural course."
He slammed his closed fist against his own knee in anger.
— "I prevented the attack. I pushed Cara away before she could hurt you, and because I did that, Wendy didn't get the ultimate motivation to leave. She didn't suffer the attack that would sever her loyalty. She chose to stay. And what if I forced her to stay behind, and she and the other witches die when the demons attack the mountain? I prevented her life from being at risk in the short term, but I condemned her to death in the long run. I changed destiny and ruined the future of someone good."
William stopped talking, panting, expecting Nightingale to judge him, to be angry at him for being the architect of Wendy's imprisonment.
Instead, he felt a warm touch on the side of his face.
Nightingale raised her hand and gently turned his face so their eyes met.
There was no horror, no anger in her features. There was only a vast, forgiving understanding and a hint of affectionate reproach. She had a sad but firm smile on her lips.
— "Let me ask you a very simple question," Nightingale whispered, stroking his rough cheek with her thumb. — "With all your glorious, prophetic knowledge... If you had been inside, invisible and merely observing. And you knew that for Wendy to decide to come with us, she would have to be gravely wounded in the arm, suffering unbearable pain. Would you have stood by and done nothing? Did you want to see Wendy, the kindest woman I've ever known, suffer for days just to force her to change her mind?"
— "No!" William replied immediately, his tone indignant at the mere suggestion, his eyes wide. — "Of course not! I would never want to see that! I would intervene to save her no matter what, even if I knew the consequences! I wouldn't let Cara lay a hand on her!"
Nightingale's smile widened, turning into something radiant.
— "Exactly," she pointed out, her voice like a balm over the exposed wound in his soul. — "You would have saved her anyway, William, because that is the man you are. You do not sacrifice good people in exchange for convenient results, and that is why I am here, swearing my life to you."
She leaned in a little closer, keeping her hand on his face.
— "You haven't ruined anything," Nightingale continued, every word carrying tons of logic and affection. — "Wendy is a grown, wise woman. She chose to stay in the cave of her own free will; it was her choice, guided by the love she still has for those girls and for Cara. What did you do? All you did was prevent my sister from being hurt. You spared us from watching a massacre and having to carry a dying woman through the snow for three days, praying she wouldn't die on the way. Do you think Wendy would prefer to be here right now at the cost of a monstrous scar and watching Cara become a sister-killer?"
Nightingale's unassailable logic began to dismantle William's fortress of guilt brick by brick. He tried to argue, opening his mouth to speak about the demons, about the imminent end of the Association, but she wouldn't let him.
— "You suffer for what people have chosen to do with their free will," Nightingale said softly, moving her other hand to hold the tense fist resting on his knee, smoothing William's knuckles with her thumb. — "You prevented immediate suffering. That is what knights do. Tomorrow... we will deal with tomorrow when the sun rises. Perhaps there's another way to save Wendy. Perhaps she will manage to escape. We are not gods, William. We cannot carry the weight of the world and other people's choices; it is enough to carry our own."
Those words, spoken in the silent darkness of the room, accompanied by the gentle touch of the woman he had risked everything to save, finally broke the dam.
The barbed wire tightening around William's chest loosened. He exhaled, and all the tension in his shoulders, the suffocating guilt, and the fear of failure began to dissolve into the night.
William closed his eyes, leaning his face into Nightingale's warm hand, allowing himself, for the first time since he had stepped onto that frozen mountain, to find peace.
He said nothing more, and she demanded no answers. The shadow assassin and the tortured soldier remained there, sitting side by side on the edge of the bed.
While the winter roared outside the castle's thick walls, inside that room, William finally left his guilt behind, forgiven not by himself, but by the woman whose words had anchored him back to the reality that truly mattered.