CHAPTER 253: SHE WAS CHARLOTTE

The woman blinked slowly and then laughed bitterly to herself, she sank further in the chair and pulled on one of her curls. She picked underneath her finger and then let out a sigh.

"What a stupid mutt," she murmured to herself.

She pulled herself up, squeezed her eyes shut, she constantly told herself that blonde weakling;s words did not faze her but she could not ignore the unmistakable jerk in her hands when she heard the words.

’I will see it that you limp for the rest of your days,’

Another laugh escaped her lips, this time even more bereft of mirth. Her leg bounced up and down as she stared at the empty seat before her with narrowed eyes.

Oh how she despised the name Charlotte, it was such a gaudy name from gods knows where. It must have meant a lot to the General when she was grinning ear to ear when she said it would be her name from now on.

He had pressed his hands down on her shoulder and said, ’Charlotte is perfect, you look like a Charlotte. It fits you.’

It made sense when she found out his dead daughter was named Charlotte, and she was not a Charlotte and would never be one. These days she had long forgotten the name her mother had given her before it all went sour.

She tsked and rose up from the chair. Her days were never boring; on the contrary they wore down on her spirit each day. Was she Charlotte or...

Her eyes widened when she saw the shattered vase on the floor, how had she been so clumsy? Someone would come to clean it up, it was not her job. Far cry from what she had been sent here to do, what was it again?

Charlotte stooped down and regarded the shards upon the floor as though they were relics from some bygone age. The porcelain lay in ruin, jagged like teeth that dared to mock her. She ought to summon a servant, yet her hand only brushed against the pieces absently, as though confirming they were indeed broken and not some trick of her weary eyes. She drew her fingers away, a thin line of red springing up on her thumb. With a small hiss, she placed it in her mouth, tasting iron.

"A limp for the rest of my days," she muttered, her lips curling faintly. How weak she had seemed, how pliant, and yet when she spoke those words her voice did not waver. A rogue’s arrogance, no doubt. Serena thought herself strong for finding her tongue at last. Charlotte straightened, pressing her hand against her waist until her back popped.

It was not guilt that needled her, she told herself. It was duty. She had shoved the woman, that was all, pressed her shoulders to remind her of her place. It had been necessary. Rogues needed reminding, else they forgot themselves. Yet the memory of her own fingers digging into that fragile arm lingered too long in her mind, the pulse beneath trembling. She scoffed aloud. Serena was a creature of nerves, nothing more. The girl would either crumble of her own folly or else break her neck trying to play some long game with Darius.

Still, the echo of those words. Limp for the rest of your days. The rogue was either manipulative or a fool, and both paths led to death.

Charlotte drifted away from the mess on the floor, her hands folding into her sleeves. She walked from the chamber, her step slow, her eyes dull as though the walls themselves had drawn her into some dream. The corridors seemed endless in their echo, her boots clicking on stone as torchlight bled against tapestries faded with age. She passed a mirror, caught the faint glimmer of herself, and paused. The woman who stared back was pale, her brown eyes ringed dark as if painted with soot, her hair unkempt though still threaded with curls. She pushed her hand against the surface and let out a quiet sigh.

Was she Charlotte? No, it was a trick of the light.

The name tasted bitter. Her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, aching with the memory of another name, one she had not spoken in years. But it fled her before she could seize it, as though some hand within her mind had locked it away. Charlotte. Always Charlotte. She had been too young to refuse.

She resumed her walk, the halls curving like a maze around her. A draft stirred, carrying the scent of dust and stone. For a heartbeat her vision blurred, and she saw a younger self darting ahead in the corridor, skirts lifted in girlish haste. A child’s giggle pealed, and two figures rushed with her—Darius with hair like a wild rose bush, Livia with ribbons at her shoulders. All three tumbled past her, phantoms of an age unmarred by loss.

Her breath caught. She reached out, but the image dissolved as quickly as it came. She steadied herself against the wall. No. That life was gone, buried with names and faces she had no right to hold. Her eyes closed, lips parting in a whispered prayer that never quite formed.

She forced herself upright, hands falling to her sides with deliberate calm. A soldier’s posture, a soldier’s breath. The child was gone. The past needed to stay dead, lest it rot her from within. She was Charlotte now, and Charlotte had her work to do.

Her steps brought her toward the outer gallery where windows gave way to the fading light of afternoon. She paused there, the glow casting shadows across her face. In her silence, the memory of Serena’s defiance returned. The rogue’s voice, raw and unadorned, rang in her ears. For the first time in years, someone had spoken to her not as a shadow of another but as herself, Charlotte, flawed and cruel.

Her mouth twisted. She ought to laugh, she ought to dismiss it with ease. Instead, the thought gnawed at her ribs. Was it possible, after all, that the blonde fool saw more clearly than any of them? No. It was a weakness to dwell. She struck her palm against the sill, the sound crisp in the hollow gallery.

"Rogues die," she whispered to the stone. "They always die."

Her heart slowed as the words settled. Yes, Serena would fall by her own hand or another’s. The thought was balm, though it carried no joy. Charlotte gathered her skirts and turned back into the depth of the keep. Duty awaited her, not ghosts. Yet as she walked, her shadow stretched long behind her, carrying with it fragments of a child who once bore another name, a name lost to time, now buried beneath the mask she was forced to wear.

She pressed her lips together and did not look back.