The next day, I woke up with the loud banging early in the morning. I quickly got up from the bed as my hair puffed from moving around while I was sleeping to search for a comfortable spot. Who came to someone's house this early this morning?

The sun wasn't up yet as the moonlight flooded the room. Luke sat up from the loud noise as he briefly questioned me with his eyes. I shrugged as I rubbed my eyes, indirectly telling him I knew nothing about the person who woke us up.

He sighed before leaving the bed and opened the door. Instead of finding someone we knew, one of Olive's friends stood in front of the door. She was also one of her neighbors from the brief conversation with her two days before. Tears glistened her eyes like she was about to cry at any moment as she came into our house.

"Rika!" One of Olive's friends called for me.

"What happened?" I yawned.

"Olive is in trouble!" She cried.

I stumbled back into the bed from surprise. Why was Olive in trouble? We saw each other yesterday and everything was fine. I wondered what happened as I grabbed her hands for answers. Olive's friend tried to calm herself down to tell the entire story.

"Olive refused the marriage proposal to the village chief's son and because of that the village chief declared her to be a witch!"

What happened? I asked Olive's friend to repeat her words as I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stopped her the seventh time she repeated the news. I wondered how she knew about the news so fast. It wasn't like Olive was dragged out of her own home, right?

"How do you know?" I asked with a bit of fear.

"The aides of the chief stormed into her house with ropes and weapons while chasing the rest of her family out of the house," she trembled.

This village chief had to die. I rolled up my sleeves and slipped on my outdoor shoes to go to her house. I had to help Olive somehow. The weight of guilt from encouraging her to decline the proposal burdened my shoulders.

I never knew she would be declared a witch just for refusing the village chief. Olive did seem hesitant about pursuing her own happiness that day. And I knew how brutal the witch hunt was in the fifth district from reading about them in books.

They tied a young girl to a wooden stake and burned her alive for going against the norms as they regarded all heretics as witches. It was brutal as there was normally a crowd underneath, cheering for the young girl's death like they were at a festival. Even money was given as a reward for exterminating a witch as it was supported by the kingdom.

The witch hunt was originally created to control commoners from having any thoughts of rebelling by making them turn against each other. The land in the fifth district was split two separate areas in every place to show signs of power. Nobles lived in extravagant castles filled with treasures of gold while commoners lived in the dreary homes inside the villages.

The nobles lived off the commoners who were expected to pay unfair taxes in exchange for governing the territory. It was obvious this corrupt balance of power wouldn't last long unless there was some way to share the wealth. And the people in power had a history of declaring a decree called the witch hunt to share the spoils.

I didn't know what was the right answer. It was either to marry that scum or refuse and be labelled as a witch. Both were terrible to the point I felt like I was going to vomit. But, I told myself that living had to be better than dying to Olive.

Before Luke could block me from running to Olive, I ran out the door. I knew the way to her house like the route was ingrained into me from the past few days. I unintentionally used my mana as I sped through the trees to push me forward. The wind whooshed through my ears as the sun started to rise like a brand new day was coming.

Except that Olive may not be able to live another day after today. It would be my fault because I was the one who encouraged her to show her talent to others. This made her famous in the village and the rumors spread to the chief. Since the chief was corrupt, he found this to be an opportunity to exploit her by marrying her into their family.

It was the typical formula that happened in the storybooks. I stopped in front of her door as I panted to catch my breath. My heart panged with pain when I found her family wailing outside the house.

Her siblings were young, maybe one at most a year old and the other around four, the same age when I was swept into this new vessel. They were silent as they trembled from the loud noise of plates shattering onto the floor. Her parents hugged their children, trying to hide their fear whenever Olive screamed for help.

I shot them an apologetic look as they tried to stop me from going in. I couldn't tell them it was my fault that their child was getting tortured inside her own house. It was the first time I scarily realized my words could impact someone else's fate to this extent.