The first war they won together was not glorious.
It was mud and hunger, a border town more bones than bricks. Rossetta remembered standing ankle-deep in marsh, her boots swallowed with every step, barking orders until her throat tore raw. Soldiers stumbled through trenches half-filled with rain too cold for spring, faces pale from sleepless nights and bellies hollowed by meager rations. The air reeked of smoke and rotting grain.
They were not supposed to win. The prince's banner—little more than a half-forgotten scrap of blue cloth—barely clung to its pole. The enemy outnumbered them two to one, with mercenaries well-fed and steel well-forged.
But numbers mattered little when you bent the wind.
Rossetta lifted her hands, mud streaking her palms, and whispered to the air. The gales shifted. Arrows meant for their throats veered aside, planting harmlessly in the marsh. She whispered again—words woven with old magic—and soldiers who had nearly broken found steadiness in their steps, as if the weight of fear had been lifted from their spines.
And more than magic—she taught. She moved among them, pointing where to strike, when to fall back, how to fight not against the enemy's strength but against his panic.
"Cut the supply line. Break the commander's voice. Soldiers are not iron, they are men—and men bend where fear is weakest."
They bent.
When dawn broke, the town still stood. The prince—mud-caked, armor dented, blood trickling from his brow—held his sword aloft with shaking arms. Around him, men too exhausted to stand raised their voices anyway, roaring not for him, not even for her, but for the impossible fact of survival.
That survival became a story.
And stories, Rossetta knew, moved faster than armies.
By the second campaign, the stories had taken root. Farmers marched willingly into their ranks, leaving their plows in furrows and carrying pikes instead. Mothers offered bread before tax collectors could take their share. Even old men, too frail to march, drilled their sons with pride. Everywhere Rossetta went, whispers followed—the Witch who led them to light.
At first, it made her wary.
One night, by a dying fire, she had warned him.
"Don't let them set me higher than you," she murmured, her voice low, watching sparks curl into the night sky.
The prince laughed, though his tone held something bitter.
"You saved them, Rossetta. You save me. How am I supposed to compete with that?"
"Don't compete," she said softly.
"Rule. Let me be your shadow. Shadows make the light sharper."
He smiled at that. For a while, it was enough.
But shadows do not stay small forever.
With each victory, her legend outpaced his crown. By the time he was crowned king, ballads carried her name beside his.
"The Witch of War and the Boy King," bards sang in markets, their words painting pictures of a queen who had never wanted to be one.
The courtiers saw it. Their smiles grew too polished, their bows too shallow. Generals muttered behind gauntleted hands, weighing who truly commanded their loyalty. Even the priests, who once blessed her openly for miracles on the battlefield, began to temper their prayers, careful not to bow too low in her direction.
Rossetta felt it—the subtle shift. The envy brewing like stormclouds at the edges of triumph. A look that lingered too long when she entered the hall. A toast made with too little warmth. A prayer that excluded her name when once it had exalted it.
And the king himself—her friend, her ally, the boy she had once lifted from mud—he, too, began to stiffen beneath the weight of whispers.
"Some say you fight wars not for me, but for yourself," he told her one evening, wine untouched, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond his window.
Rossetta smiled, though it felt like breaking bone.
"If I wanted a throne, I'd have taken yours already."
The silence that followed was not mistrust—yet. But it was a silence wide enough for mistrust to grow.
The third campaign brought them to the riverlands. Again they won, but this time the victory did not taste of glory—it tasted of unease.
When Rossetta strode into camp after the battle, soldiers knelt to her first. Only after she motioned did they turn to their king. That single moment spread through camp like wildfire. By morning, she overheard the title on every tongue: Her Witch Majesty.
It unsettled her. That night, she confronted him.
"They cheer my name before yours," she said.
"This is dangerous."
The king's jaw tightened. "And whose fault is that?"
She blinked. "Mine? I never sought their cheers."
"No," he said, gaze hard, "but you never silenced them either."
The words struck deeper than any blade.
Rossetta had devoted every breath, every drop of magic, every ounce of her strength to him, to their cause, to the kingdom. To hear him say this—him, the boy who once looked at her like she was his only ally in a hostile court—felt like betrayal wrapped in velvet.
She bit her tongue. Arguing would only carve the wound deeper.
"Then let me go," she said at last, voice calm but trembling beneath. "Let me leave court. Let me fade into the background, as I should have long ago."
For a heartbeat, she thought he might agree. But his pride, already bruised by years of standing in her shadow, would not let him.
"No," he said.
"Stay. But remember your place, Rossetta. You are my subject. Nothing more."
The words rang like a sentence passed.
She stayed, for loyalty's sake. For friendship's sake. For the boy she once believed would always see her as his equal.
But the court's whispers sharpened. Generals carried doubts like hidden daggers. Priests who once prayed for her began to preach of heresy. And in the eyes of the king—no longer boy, no longer friend—she saw not gratitude, but resentment.
The seed of betrayal had been planted.
And Rossetta, shadow though she wished to be, could already feel the storm gathering.