ROSE remembered the day she met Harij as if it were just yesterday.
It happened shortly after her grandmother passed away.
Still a fledgling witch at the time, Rose had failed at concocting a potion, which wasn’t all that unusual for her. However, it was the first time she had to go into the big city alone to stock up on ingredients.
The royal capital was just beyond the forest where she lived. For all she knew, the forest may have been a part of the capital, but neither she nor the witches before her acknowledged it as such.
The city was brimming with smiles, activity, and noise unlike anything Rose had encountered in the woods.
The main road, lined with stones carved to be the same shape, was surprisingly easy to walk on. Houses made of brick and tile stood in neat rows along the thoroughfare. Tents were set up in front of the houses, selling grain-filled jute bags, colorful vegetables in baskets, and other useful ingredients.
Under one of the tents from which rabbits and foxes hung, a shopkeeper conversed with a customer while they smoked puffing pipes. A horse-drawn carriage raced through the narrow space in front of them at a tremendous speed. Children entertained themselves by chasing after the fast rotating wheels.
The city was full of life and excitement, but Rose wasn’t in the right mindset to enjoy it. Anxiety filled her more than joy.
At the time, Rose had just taken over the house affairs and family business from her grandmother, and she was physically and mentally exhausted. She struggled to earn the trust of clients, and the chores she wasn’t used to doing alone kept piling up.
With a heavy heart, she forced one foot in front of the other down the unfamiliar capital road.
Whenever she ventured into the city before, she was shown around by her grandmother, who taught her everything about being a witch. Rose was confident that she knew more about the forest than anyone else, but the cityscapes created by people all looked the same.
Everyone in the city looked too busy to ask for directions. Moreover, they were all dressed in colorful and fashionable clothing. It never bothered Rose when she was with her grandmother, but she felt a tad self-conscious wearing a hand-me-down dress from her mother around all these fancy city people. Feeling pathetic again, her steps grew heavier. Too shy to inquire, she searched for the store her grandmother usually frequented by herself. By chance, she overheard people talking along the way.
“Oh yeah, did you hear?! The Witch of the Lake is dead!”
Rose stopped in her tracks and turned toward the conversation, which was being held in a café. The aroma of something delicious like nothing she had ever smelled before lingered in the air. Red-faced customers sat at the outdoor tables, each holding a large mug and shouting their conversation.
“What? You sure?! That old hag has been around since I was a wee lad!”
“Don’t they say she’s been alive for over two hundred years? And here I thought she would live for another hundred.”
Obviously her grandmother hadn’t lived for two hundred years. They probably mistook her for her great-grandmother, or her great-great-grandmother. Rose stepped forward to correct them, but what they said next stayed her feet.
“Well, either way, it’s for the better!”
Shock drained the color from her face. Rose couldn’t believe her ears. Her heart throbbed and she felt sick to her stomach.
“Having a witch living nearby tarnishes the city’s reputation.”
“Who knows what might happen to you if you accidentally incur the wrath of a fickle and cruel witch!”
“I told my children to never go into the woods unless they want to be devoured by the man-eating witch living there…”
“Now we have nothing to worry about.”
The customers laughed and sounded downright exuberant about the Witch’s demise.
Rose felt dizzy. Everything in front of her turned black and she started to forget how to stay standing.
Rose had no idea that the Witch was feared, that children were warned not to go into the woods, and that they so hated her kind that they would rejoice upon her grandmother’s death. To only realize this at her age told her just how sheltered from the world she was. Wondering if her grandmother knew of their malice horrified her.
If her grandmother had been aware, then she had always endured it alone and purposely shielded Rose from the truth. Perhaps Rose had been hiding from the grim reality behind her grandmother’s dress, never realizing she was being protected.
“Anyone who takes immense joy in someone else’s death is sick.”
A sharp voice reached Rose’s ears where she stood rooted to the ground outside the café. She lifted her head with a start, and a single teardrop slid down her cheek. She didn’t even know her eyes had filled with tears.
The speaker seemed to be a man dining at the table beside the loudly laughing customers. He was a tall man with ashen hair. His menacing expression enhanced the disgust in his words.
“Shopkeep, my bill.”
At the man’s summons, the café owner nearly tripped over himself as he ran out from behind the counter. “Yes, sir!”
The two customers who had been enjoying a good laugh were irritated over this uncalled-for interruption. They just wouldn’t let it go and had to say more to the man, without hiding their ire.
“Hey, buddy, it’s not a someone who died…but a witch, y’know?”
“Your point? Witches are people, too.”
The drunk customer was the one who challenged him, but he was silenced by how easily the man dismissed him. Shame washed over his face as if he had never deigned to think that the Witch might be an actual person.
“Has the Witch ever done anything bad to you?” the man challenged with a seriousness that was hard to argue with.
“No…”
“If it were me, I’d curse the rude bastards who rejoiced over my death. Say your prayers and hope that she is, indeed, a good witch.”
The man flayed the customers with a piercing glare, grabbed his cloak off the back of his chair, and stood.
When he turned around, he caught Rose’s eye outside the café. In the sunlight, his eyes were the blue of a shadow cast upon fresh winter snow.
Rose held her breath and worked up the courage to thank him, but he promptly broke their locked gaze. He had no idea that the very witch they were discussing was standing right in front of him. Whenever Rose went into the city, she shed the dark robe that marked her as a witch, as was her habit during the time her grandmother was still alive. She wore a black handkerchief around her hair since she was in mourning, but that wasn’t enough to make anyone think she was a witch.
The man fastened his fluttering cloak over his shoulders and gallantly walked off. The eye-catching indigo cloth rippled against his back in waves with his gait.
“Hey, Harij!”
“Sir Azm, please wait!”
The other men who had been seated at the table with Harij hurried to their feet. They all snatched up cloaks the same stunning shade of indigo.
Fear surged through the customers sitting at the café.
“C-Crap! He’s with the knights!”
“I sure hope you didn’t tick him off! This café isn’t responsible for its patrons!”
“Isn’t Azm the name of Heizlan’s lord?”
The café was in an uproar, but Rose wasn’t listening anymore. Her full attention was anchored on Harij and the indigo cloak flapping at his back as he walked.
“Harij Azm…” Her heart squeezed after uttering the name she had only just learned.
On that day, Rose fell in love.
In love with someone she could never have.