It began with whispers.
They always do.
"Your Majesty, it is dangerous to let a witch command men of faith."
"She bows too deeply, yet none bow as deeply to you."
"Does her shadow not seem longer than your throne?"
At first, the king dismissed them. He laughed, loud and confident, clapping his courtiers on the back. Rossetta? A threat? She's my dearest friend, the reason I wear this crown.
But words are a kind of sorcery. Repeated enough, they become weight. And soon, every cheer for Rossetta on the streets was a chain around his chest. Every soldier who toasted her name louder than his was a reminder that power did not always obey blood.
Priests played their part well. They spoke of ancient warnings—that witches, unchecked, would rise above kings. They brought parchments from crumbling temples, half-legends about witches who devoured empires. And though Rossetta had shed blood for crown and country, the church painted her as predator disguised as protector.
The courtiers twisted truth into daggers. They told of how her merchant caravans stretched further than the treasury's reach. How grain flowed more swiftly under her mark than the king's. They never guessed she was the Moonlight Merchant herself, but suspicion does not need truth. It only needs fuel.
And the king, already carrying the fragile pride of one who had once been overlooked, found himself clutching those daggers tighter with every passing day.
One evening, he called her to his chambers. No guards, no council—just the two of them, as it had once been when they were young.
"Rossetta," he began, staring into the fire.
"Tell me honestly… do you dream of a crown?"
Her laugh was quiet, tired.
"A crown? I've seen what it costs. I want no part of it."
But the king did not look relieved. He looked afraid.
Because once, long ago, he had asked her another question, by another fire.
"Do you think I could ever be king?" And she had smiled and said yes, then carried him into that dream until it became truth.
If she had wanted, she could have carried herself instead.
The thought festered.
Soon, trust became silence. Silence became doubt. Doubt became distance.
And in that distance, the courtiers poured their poison freely.
When the first war tax went missing from the treasury, they said Rossetta's merchants had intercepted it.
When a village failed to deliver tribute, they whispered she had ordered them to hold it back.
When a knight defected to a rival lord, they claimed it was her spell that lured him away.
Lies, all of them. But lies wrapped in fear taste close enough to truth.
Rossetta sensed it. She saw the way his eyes flickered when hers met his. She heard the strain in his voice when he forced gratitude into his tone.
Still, she stayed. Because she remembered the boy in the mud, the one she had pulled to his feet. She thought friendship, once forged in hardship, could not be broken.
She was wrong.
The bells tolled at dawn. Not for war. Not for mourning. But for judgment.
Rossetta was dragged into the great hall, wrists bound with chains laced in holy silver. The metal burned her skin, hissing where it touched, yet she bore it in silence. She had once entered this chamber to plan campaigns, to receive honors. Now, every banner seemed to sneer, every torch to flicker in mockery.
The king sat upon the throne. Not the boy she had once known, not the friend who dreamed of crowns by firelight—but a monarch clad in suspicion, drowning in whispers he mistook for truth. His crown looked heavier than ever, as though fear itself weighed it down.
"Rossetta of Moon's Vale," the herald's voice boomed, "you stand accused of treason, sorcery against the crown, and conspiring to seize the throne."
The hall erupted in gasps, though not of shock. No one was surprised. Whispers had been fattening on lies for months. Now they had simply grown too loud to ignore.
Rossetta lifted her gaze to the throne.
"Treason?" Her voice was calm, steady, though each syllable carved into her chest.
"Every scar I bear is from wars fought for this land. Every victory you wear like a jewel was bought with my blood. And now… treason?"
The king's lips tightened. He would not meet her eyes.
A priest stepped forward, parchment in hand.
"The witch consorted with foreign lords. The witch hoarded wealth beyond the crown's command. The witch bewitched our soldiers, binding their loyalty to her rather than their king."
Lies. All lies. But dressed in scripture and ceremony, they became chains heavier than silver.
Rossetta's laugh rang bitter. "Foreign lords? I fed the poor with my grain when your coffers lay empty. Wealth? I bled myself into the fields to fill them. Loyalty?" She took one step forward, dragging the chains across the marble. Sparks hissed as silver scraped stone.
"They followed me because I fought beside them, not behind them."
For a heartbeat, silence held. Even some knights lowered their gaze, remembering the fields where she had stood unyielding while kings trembled behind walls.
But then the king rose. His voice was sharp, rehearsed, heavy with the poison others had poured into him.
"You would make yourself greater than the crown." His words trembled, not with doubt but with fear.
"This realm has one throne, one ruler. I cannot—will not—suffer a rival cloaked as a savior."
Rossetta's chest tightened. She saw the boy again, mud-stained, eyes burning with the dream of kingship. She had carried him into power. And now, he crushed her beneath it.
Her voice broke only once.
"I never wanted your throne. Only your friendship."
The king faltered—but the courtiers cheered, drowning the moment. Priests raised their hands, branding her with curses of exile. The people, stirred by fear and hunger for scapegoats, shouted as if it had always been true: Witch. Traitor. Usurper.
The judgment was spoken: banishment beyond the empire's borders, stripped of title, of land, of honor.
And thus, with one decree, the age of harmony ended. The king saved his pride, but birthed a plague of fear.
That night, fires were lit in villages across the land. Not for warmth. For witch hunts.
And Rossetta, walking into exile, carried the weight of centuries not yet written—betrayal carved into bone, trust burned into ash.
The gates of the capital closed behind her with a groan that echoed like a tomb sealing shut. Rossetta did not look back. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her stumble, of seeing her eyes search for a mercy that would never come.
Each step burned. The chains had been removed, but the memory of silver biting her flesh lingered like phantom fire. She walked alone, no carriage, no escort, no banner to shield her from the stares of those who lined the roads.
Some threw stones. Others spat.
But worst of all were the silent ones—those who had once cheered her name, who now lowered their eyes, unwilling to meet the gaze of the fallen.
She thought of the Moonlight Merchant, her empire hidden in shadows. To the world, it was but a nameless guild, rising quietly with no master. To her, it was lifeblood, her one remaining refuge. She had built it with foresight, knowing one day crowns might turn. But now, she dared not reveal her hand. If the king knew she was its true mistress, he would burn it to the ground—and with it, the countless innocents she sheltered beneath its banner.
So Rossetta let the world believe she was nothing.
A disgraced witch.
A traitor cast out.
A duchess erased.
Night fell heavy as she reached the forests beyond the border. There was no fire to warm her, no voice to soothe the ache of her silence. The woods whispered, but gave no comfort. Even the stars seemed colder, as if heaven itself had turned its face away.
Rossetta sank against the roots of an ancient tree, pressing her torn hands into the earth as though it might anchor her. A hollow laugh spilled from her lips, jagged and sharp.
"Alive?" she whispered into the darkness.
"No. Something that trusted died in me today."
From the distance, smoke curled into the sky. Villages set pyres ablaze, each flame a signal of fear. The priests had wasted no time. They declared her exile not enough—that witches must be rooted out, hunted, purged. Her name became curse and warning.
And so the witch hunts began.
Rossetta lay beneath the trees, watching sparks fall from the heavens, and whispered a vow to the night:
Never again. Never again will I place my faith in crowns, in friends, in men who fear shadows brighter than themselves.
If love is weakness, then I shall carve it out. If trust is poison, then I will drink it no longer.
The leaves rustled, carrying her words like an oath sealed in blood.
From that night on, Rossetta was not the commander who had led armies, not the duchess whose counsel bent the ear of kings. She was the Masked Witch, wandering through centuries, wearing scars deeper than flesh.
Her heart remained, but walled. Her power, vast, but chained by her own will. For though the world would one day tremble at her name, Rossetta carried only one truth carved into her bones:
Betrayal does not kill.
It lingers.
It haunts.
And it teaches a witch never to bow again.