The forest was quiet as Rosina moved through the underbrush, her oakwood cane tapping softly against the damp earth. The faint glow of her silver hairpins and silver cane inlay was the only light in the dark, moonlit woods. The stillness around her was unnerving—no wind, no chirping insects, not even the rustle of leaves. Only the sound of her measured footsteps broke the silence.
Ahead, a pack of wolves lingered in her path, their eyes glowing faintly in the dark. For a moment, they held their ground, their hackles raised and their teeth bared. But then, as her sharp gaze locked onto them, their confidence faltered. They whined softly, lowering their heads and slinking back into the shadows, their connection to their mistress—Adelheid—severed.
The path to the candy cottage stretched long before her, but her steps were slow, deliberate. Her body ached from the battle—her knees protested with every step, and her arms trembled slightly from the weight of the magic she had wielded. Yet it wasn’t the pain that weighed most heavily on her. It was the questions.
Adelheid’s lifeless body was a memory she couldn’t shake. The hammer of white magic she had summoned had struck with a force that left no room for survival. Rosina had killed before, but this was different. Adelheid had been a sorceress, yes—a user of dark powers and a threat to the children—but was that enough?
“I am a magesta,” Rosina murmured to herself, her voice barely audible over the sound of her steps. “A white witch. A protector.”
The words felt hollow, even as she spoke them. Her magic was meant to shield Innocence, to cast away darkness. But tonight, she had bludgeoned another to death in rage. A sorceress was anathema to a magesta, but had that given her the grounds to kill Adelheid so brutally? Or had she acted out of anger—anger for the children and for the endless stream of cruelty that seemed to surround her?
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Her thoughts turned to Ruprecht, sleeping soundly in the candy cottage. The man who had abandoned his own flesh and blood to the merciless forest, who had consigned his children to death for his own selfish survival. Rosina’s jaw tightened as the image of him rose in her mind, a cruel and pitiful figure.
She could almost hear the oven’s roar, smell the searing of flesh as Ruprecht was cooked inside. Her mind flashed to Ursula, the bear, tearing into the man’s remains with a ferocity that matched the betrayal he had wrought upon his children. The thought sent a chill down her spine—not because it horrified her, but because it appealed to her.
She stopped walking, leaning heavily on her cane. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, her chest tight with conflicting emotions. “What am I becoming?” she whispered to the still forest. “What have I already become?”
Her body reminded her constantly of her growing age—slower reflexes, weaker limbs, the strain of magic heavier with each passing year. But it was her mind that troubled her most. As the years wore on, her impulses to act violently, to embrace wickedness, had grown harder to resist.
Was it simply the nature of her power, the strain of holding so much light in the presence of overwhelming darkness? Or was it something deeper, something within her—a shadow growing with age, a bitterness that festered in the cracks left by years of grief and loss?
She thought of Hansel and Gretel, sleeping soundly in her cottage, oblivious to the blood that had been spilled on their behalf. She had promised to protect them, to give them a new chance at life. But what kind of guardian could she be if her heart was turning black with rage?
Her free hand clenched into a fist, nails digging into her palm. Adelheid deserved to die, she thought fiercely. She abandoned her children, sent a goblin to hunt them. I had no choice.
But deep down, she knew that wasn’t entirely true. There was always a choice. She could have spared Adelheid. She could have cast her out, sent her into exile. Instead, she had chosen to kill, to crush the woman beneath the weight of her magic.
And what of Ruprecht? The thought of feeding him to the bear was never far from her mind. Would that be justice? Or would it be vengeance disguised as righteousness?