Charlotte's Journal

My adult life has been dull, and grey. A shadow of the loss in my past. I didn't try to attend court anymore. I'd already been given an answer to everything that mattered to me. That answer being, I was lucky to be alive. I was lucky to be safe. I was lucky not to be beaten. I was lucky not to always be treated the way they treat women. It was no answer, really. It was a threat. Because with less mana to support them, I wouldn't be worth the food I ate to them. I aspected earth, water, and air. The aspects needed to keep our city clean. The aspects of service. Of value. Aspects that would justify my existence to the other nobles of my station. My father would have turned in his grave had he seen the fall of our house.

Until I met two men. The first was a young boy with eyes like mine. Abandoned like I was. Desperate like I am. A boy that needed my help. He brought color back with him. And hope. I wouldn't repeat my mistakes. Not with him. I didn't have Amelia, but I hadn't forgotten our childhood dream. Children that could bask in the sunlight. I would do whatever I could to be that sunlight for him. To be that safety. And to keep him safe from the world that hated him. With him, I chose a new name. One that felt right, but was close enough to my old to feel safe. Close enough to be denied if the wrong person heard it whispered down the wrong hall. I would be Charlotte, and he would be Leo. And I would love him like a son.

The other was Duke Godfrey. A man often taken lightly himself, but with position and power that even surpassed mine. And he offered me his hand. His help. His authority. He wasn't the king, but he was too powerful to ignore. Too strong to balk at. With a word from him, the Renatus name carried weight again. With a word from him, lesser nobles were too afraid to hurt me or my son. I still wasn't respected. Not really. I knew I was hated. I knew neither of us was really safe. But we were both more safe than I had ever been before. We had a chance at a life.

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My heart stopped when Leo asked to go to school. When he asked to prove our value. But I understood. And I could protect him, since meeting Godfrey. So I agreed. I bought him clothes he would love. Paid for an inn he could sleep at when they insisted on the wrong dorm for him. I put all my hopes for the future in him. I wouldn't let him live through my mistakes.

My heart stopped again when Godfrey asked for my help making him king. But I had tried fighting without him. And I knew Leo would die. Even if he was only a Duke, he was an older one. And with the king we had... Leo would still die eventually. With Godfrey as king... I finally had a chance at real change. I would finally have a voice at the top that listened to me. I could finally exist without begging for permission, or losing a fight to win the right. So I agreed to that too. He was a good man. He didn't understand me, but he understood that he didn't need to understand. And he could offer Leo a real future.

And finally, Leo and Godfrey both approached me, at separate times, asking for help with the same girl. A girl with a fire in her blood. Leo said she could heal our bodies. Make our skin fit. Godfrey said she would get my son killed. My son and so many others. Godfrey could offer us a future. And I had seen what Lily could offer, and where it led. I decided to gamble on the man who offered a future. I chose to keep my son alive. I would not repeat my mistakes again. I would not let the world turn grey.