The morning had arrived.
Charlotte woke up to the faint sound of birds chirping. She rose from her bed and looked around.
It was a small room. The room was terribly dusty, with wooden boxes and miscellaneous objects piled up. There was only one window near the ceiling and beyond its iron bars, the blue sky stretched out.
Charlotte looked up at the window in a daze.
The thin blanket covering her body was full of holes; her pajamas were no different from a rag.
She was in the detached storeroom of the Duke's main residence.
And it was also Charlotte's whole world.
It was a typical morning. Nothing was out of the ordinary and yet… somehow she had a strange dream. In her dream, she traveled away from here and did something with someone. Besides that, she didn't remember anything else.
Only that, a warm, strange feeling lingered deep in her heart.
Charlotte placed a hand on her chest as she tried to remember her dream, but she couldn't recall a single thing. All she felt was a prickling ache in her heart.
Before long, the toll of a bell could be heard…
"Oh no!" Charlotte hurried to get ready.
Today, not even a minute or a second can be wasted.
She changed into a pair of shabby clothes that were almost identical to her sleepwear and rushed out of the detached storeroom.
Charlotte's mother was one of the Evans maids.
At that time, the duke had a legal wife but she was sickly and often bedridden. Naturally, she could not bear children. In the midst of this, the duke made a move on one of the maids.
A common story in all ages and cultures.
However, this story was a little different. When the maid realized she was with a child, she left without saying a word.
She then gave birth to Charlotte in a rural town, away from the royal capital of the Kingdom of Neils and raised Charlotte on her own.
Though it was not a wealthy life for both mother and child, their days were spent quietly and peacefully, and they led such a life until Charlotte was seven years old.
The day after her mother died of an epidemic, a messenger from the Duke's family came for Charlotte.
"Good morning."
Charlotte bowed respectfully once she entered the main residence through the back door.
"..."
The kitchen was filled with several cooks and maids, all engaged in a flurry of activity. No one paid her any attention and no one bothered to return her greeting.
Everyone's face was covered in a black mist, their expressions completely unreadable.
Still, Charlotte, with her head down, quickly sat at a small table in the corner of the kitchen. The breakfast for Charlotte was prepared there as usual.
Today's menu was bread, roast beef, and consommé soup. While it might seem lavish at first, these were actually leftovers from last night's dinner of the main household.
The bread had gone stale and the vegetables on the side were shriveled. The soup was lukewarm at best.
"Thank you for the food…" Charlotte wasted no time digging into her meal.
All of a sudden, disdainful peals of laughter accompanied by piercing glances erupted from all directions. So much so that Charlotte could not even tell what her food tasted like.
She nevertheless continued eating her meal with unwavering focus, counting the grains of the table so as not to raise her head.